


If I Cross the Stars

by Tricochet



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: AU where Winn is a space explorer, Guardian is the hero of the Earth, M/M, Multi, The DEO gave up on aliens but still exists as a secret service thing, There's some technology and medical stuff in here but I'm bs-ing all of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 17:58:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 20,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11258007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tricochet/pseuds/Tricochet
Summary: Winn Schott and his friends fall to Earth during a space exploration mission and meet the heroes of the planet.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Starkidlabs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starkidlabs/gifts).



“Orders to all ships,” Winn reads off the translators. “Lock down vessel, move to nearest technologically advanced planet, park spaceship cloaked, shuttle down to planet’s surface, and disguise yourselves among native life-forms.”

Winn groans at the message, setting down the latest space helmet model he'd been tinkering with. He just wants a nice day exploring space with his friends for once, without any interruptions or orders.

His friend Kara switches the ship’s controls around and starts them gliding toward the closest suitable planet the scanner picked up. He's not used to it moving this quickly in its old age and slight disrepair. It must be an emergency, because it won't have fuel left once they pass Mars.

Captain J’onn is already having the shuttle prepared as he strides through the ship and hurries everyone along, his cape swinging as he trots. 

“Agent Schott, get the ship ready to be evacuated. We're taking everyone down.”

Winn nods and starts confirming the airlock seals shutting, manually turning the shuttledrive power on. He mobilizes the life support units and primes the shuttle blasters as Kara pulls the ship to a halt past a moon of some foreign planet.

“Schott, can you confirm the effectiveness of the cloaking?”

“It's working, boss,” Winn says, checking the instruments by Kara’s station. 

"Are we ready to launch the shuttle to Earth?”

“We sure are, boss,” Winn confirms. 

J’onn shows him and Kara to the shuttle, not trusting them to find the way alone.

M'gann checks them in and makes them buckle their seat belts before and smiling at J’onn. 

“We’re all here.”

He nods at his wife and types in the shuttle code. He and M’gann run to their seats next to an orange alien insect from five galaxies over. A lime-colored blob whose intellect helped build the ship is held in place by a box on their other side.

Alex is next to Kara, telling her how much she'll enjoy visiting Earth as they count down to the launch.

Winn avoids making eye contact with Lyra, who is staring at him from a row over. He chuckles and turns instead to the invisible alien on his left, asking them nervously about their home planet.

He's interrupted by the muted purr as the engines start to go. An alien with three heads is stopping it from being too loud for the crew’s ears with some sort of superpower, triple expressions focused in concentration. 

He slides a little bit as the shuttle blasts off and spins as it flies from the ship. He looks out one of the windows and confirms again that the ship is cloaked before the stars and planets start blurring together as the ship whirls. 

Kara has the shuttle under total control and set for a course to Earth minutes later. J'onn makes sure the ship is stabilized and checks on all the passengers. 

"Alright, crew,” he announces. “We've got eleven-five spacehours until we land, so Alex will tell us a little bit about where we're staying.”

“A crash course,” Winn jokes. Alex and Kara laugh. Lyra chuckles too hard, roaring and making Winn uncomfortable. J’onn ignores them all and continues explaining the situation. 

“Your translators have English programmed into them, which will help you communicate with the locals.”

"Be warned that not all of them speak English,” M’gann adds. 

J'onn smiles at his wife before continuing. “We’ll be able to generate their money and walk among them until we receive other orders. Alex is from Earth, so she'll be our guide. Alex, if you will, explain Earth.”

Winn considers himself a good listener, but he's asleep within a minute of Alex describing capitalism.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm actually posting this now, because I haven't yet figured out how to use this website and maybe posting will make it clearer.

Winn wakes up as the shuttle flails through Earth’s atmosphere. This time even the three-headed alien can't mute the noise as everyone with any form of vocal chord yells. 

J’onn is shouting something encouraging but Winn tunes out. He sees the parachute engage out the window and knows what's going to happen. The shuttle will land and be fine. The problem will be getting everyone out.

He can see the ground better and better now as they get closer. The shuttle isn’t made for that kind of landing it’s not supposed to-

Lyra screams as they slam into the ground. The craft makes a few bad jolts, shaking the seats inside. One of the more gelatinous aliens loses part of their flesh as it bounces away. Winn panics at a weight on his lap before the invisible alien rights themself and apologizes ashamedly for falling on him.

"It's fine," he says. He looks out the window and can't see anything but darkness. If he hadn't seen a dizzying view of the strange planet through it before, he'd think it was a black wall.

J’onn has everyone unfasten their seatbelts and drop to the floor, or the side with gravity pulling them down. He instructs Winn to assess the damage to the craft and helps M’gann reattach the lost flesh of the gelatinous alien and checks if everyone else is okay. 

“Kara, do you have access to your powers?” J’onn asks her.

She frowns and shakes her head. “I must not have been in direct enough connection with the sunlight.”

Alex sighs. "Too much to hope for."

Winn stands up. He's having a hard time moving on this planet. Its gravity is stronger than back home and he can already smell the new atmosphere. It's sweet, not as sulfuric as the environment he was raised in or the clean and scentless filtered air on the spaceship. He stands up and stretches. He can't move as well as he could in zero-g. He feels like a bugfish from an entirely aqueous planet who just got blasted out of the water, although his planet doesn't have any lakes more than a few feet deep. 

He stumbles to check the life support system first. It seems undamaged. But the whole navigation center is disconnected from the power and smashed. The lights are still on, and he can look closer out the window at the dark dirt around them from out of his seat. He doesn't know much about how Earth dirt works, but pure darkness has to be pretty deep. They must be embedded deeply enough that the only light reaching them is from their own artificial glow and the alien with luminous antennae. 

He walks back to J’onn, almost hitting the ground with every step, and gives the report.

“Everything except Navigation is fine. Oh, and we're stuck in the ground.”

J’onn stays calm. Winn doesn't know how he does it.

“Okay. Alex, try to open communications with the locals. Winn, go with her and fix whatever she needs.”

Winn can barely catch up with Alex's steps as she opens the uniwave receptors and shows the local news. Winn puts a universal translator in his ear and listens. The audio isn't lined up with the video, so he looks away.

“It's another nice day in National City,” a human says. “And here to thank our hero Guardian for his miraculous save of the buses of teenagers stuck on a falling bridge: Cat Grant!”

Winn looks at it and sees a woman smiling at the camera. “I'm sure this isn't a surprise to any of you, but we'd like to thank Guardian. He continued being tremendously brave in last night’s events. Guardian, you are the reason my son and I feel safe. I've said it before every time you do something brave, but I'll say it again. You're a hero, Guardian.”

Winn gasps at the footage of a man in a metal suit dangling from a piece of bridge scaffolding to get to the kids.

Alex frowns at him. “I get that you’re a fanboy, Winn, but I need you to help me make it play radio.”

Winn looks away from the screen to adjust a few settings. He remembers the frequency the DEO had been talking to Alex on when they sent her into space years ago. He starts testing it at the same frequency level until they hear a different variation of chatter coming through. He filters it through the translator.

“We’re sending Guardian with some agents to investigate the crash site,” a woman says.

“That's Lucy,” Alex tells Winn. "I knew her pretty well."

“We're lucky it was pretty quiet,” someone else says. "There shouldn't be any civilians in the way."

Alex frowns and shrugs at the new voice she doesn't recognize.

“Sawyer, you meet Guardian there,” Lucy orders.

"Yes ma'am," Sawyer says, and her feed cuts out.

Alex starts talking. “Hi, this is Agent Danvers to DEO. Danvers to DEO.”

Winn frowns and points at the snapped microphone. There's no way to communicate with that thing. “Alex, we’re just going to have to wait.”

Alex runs back over to J’onn and Winn tries yet again to keep up with her. "The DEO are coming to get us," she says. "They should help us."

“And they've got this fellow called Guardian along. I wonder if he's got powers,” Winn rambles.

J’onn nods. “M’gann and I are going to see if anyone else needs our help. Keep monitoring the communications.”

Winn and Alex go back to the radio and listen, Winn hoping for Guardian to say something on air. They hear something and lean in closer. 

It turns out to be Kara, sneaking up behind Alex to hug her. 

“I'm so happy for you, sis!” she squeals. "You're back home!"

Alex nods and pats her sister’s arm, but something in her smile seems like she'd rather be back in space.

Winn focuses on the radio again and tries to understand the chatter. Everyone's talking at once and the translator can't make out any words. 

He's so honed into it that he jumps when he hears a quiet noise from outside the shuttle. J’onn shushes the crew and they hear the clicking of a switch and a whirring. Red light cuts through the wall in front of Winn and makes a doorway big enough for several of him.

Winn sees the door be ripped out and looks up into the eyes in Guardian’s helmet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So on the shuttle, Winn and the others are supposed to be speaking a common alien language, but I unfortunately don't know any alien languages. So it's written in English. 
> 
> Also, Alex was born on Earth but went into space on a DEO mission. She was picked up by J'onn's ship and she learned the alien language and taught the translator machine English. Kara and her consider each other sisters. And we'll see what happens with Maggie.
> 
> I love Winn being a nerd in this chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Winn... you fanboy... don't worry... Guardian will love you too....

He yells in shock and grabs onto Alex’s shoulder until Guardian starts speaking.

“It's okay. I'm here to help,” Guardian says in a voice deeper and more robotic than other humans.

Winn lets Alex’s arm go and calms down. He sets the translator to conversation mode where he'll talk in English. “You're Guardian, right? I saw you on the Earth news saving those kids and I don't know who Cat Grant is but she-”

"Yesh. It sounded like you could use some help," Guardian says.

"Wow," Winn gawks.

Kara smirks at him. Alex pulls him away as Guardian starts helping people from the shuttle, starting with the gelatinous one and a tiny insect shaped one. He's glad that Lyra didn't follow him as he stumbles.

“Winn. Calm down. You don't have to talk to him right now,” Alex says.

“Right. Yeah, I can do that. Calm down and stop talking. I can do that,” Winn says. 

Guardian lifts Kara and flies through the tunnel to the surface. J’onn and M’gann are helping too, able to fly people around now that there's an exit. Some of the other aliens fly, crawl, or run to the surface. It only takes a moment in the sun for Kara’s power to return enough for her to swoop down and grab Alex. She takes some of the others up, checking that the three-headed one is comfortable with her arms around its body and heads sticking out. 

Winn starts blabbering again as soon as Alex is gone. Guardian watches him ramble something about his helmet and aliens and that he thought the suit was really cool. He chuckles as Winn sputters to a stop.

“Ah, sorry, if I said anything weird it's the translator. Could you help me up?”

Guardian nods and lets Winn climb into his arms. Winn doesn't really climb as much as fall, flailing wildly. But Guardian picks him up under his knees and back lifts and they fly, Winn holding onto his very nice metal-covered bicep.

Guardian sets Winn down and goes back for one of the androids on the ship and Winn stands next to Kara.

“Kara, he picked me up! It was amazing! And he had this cool suit and I was really sad when he set me down.”

“Agent Schott, could you help with salvaging some of the important tech?” J’onn orders. Winn nods and J’onn flies him back down. He can't help but think that it's not anywhere near as good as being carried by Guardian as they land.

Guardian is next to them, using a laser on the suit to open panels of the vessel. Winn instructs him which parts are salvageable and important and marvels out loud at everything the suit can do.

Guardian flies up with the tech and comes back down for Winn. They touch down next to the crew and agents.

J’onn starts speaking with Alex and a human whose voice Winn identifies as the Lucy woman on the radio. Eventually they seem to have figured everything out and step apart. 

J’onn tells his crewpeople to get in the DEO vans to be taken somewhere safe. Winn obliges happily, very willing to be safe, especially if Guardian would be with him. He pushes Lyra’s head off his shoulder and watches Guardian sit in front of him the whole ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, this fic is not going to be pro-Lyra. In this au they sort of dated, but she made Winn really uncomfortable. She likes him but he's not into her.
> 
> Next chapter, they get to the DEO and Winn falls down again!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characterization whom?

Guardian courteously helps everyone out of the DEO vehicle, offering his arm to Alex, Kara, Winn, and even J’onn. Alex rejects his assistance and hops down on her own. Kara takes it, giggling. Winn grabs it and blushes as he hits the ground and still isn't used to the gravity. J’onn flies himself down. 

The aliens all stand inside the building as J’onn addresses them. “This is the DEO, one of the most technologically advanced organizations here. They sent Alex into space and they're very excited to have us here. Lucy Lane and her team will be committed to protecting us. Guardian will be with us whenever we need him. Lucy and Alex will work on finding out why we were ordered to hide. We're going to be here until further notice.”

Lucy has the crew get medical check ups and offers them anything they need, asking all about their anatomy. They struggle to view the vitals of the gelatinous alien and the one who's invisible. Winn is fortunately humanoid enough except for his bone structure and other unnoticeable features like his clear second pair of eyelids that Lucy immediately decides that he’ll pass for human. A doctor checks him over and he eats his meal of peanut butter pretty similar to what he's used to, hiding from Lyra. Kara joins him after a while, eating buckets of every Earth dish in range and telling Winn how impressed the humans were with her physiology after she was under the sun. She keeps talking about how excited she is to finally see the planet in so many of her sister’s stories.

Winn is more interested in Guardian. Beyond his amazing suit, does he have powers? What does he do outside the DEO?

Guardian sits next to Winn and Kara at the table with a tray of food.

“How do you eat?” Winn asks.

“What?” Guardian says, still in his robotic voice.

“With that helmet on. How do you, like…”

Guardian’s eyes blink in confusion before he starts taking the helmet off. 

Winn cringes that he didn't think about the helmet coming off before he sees Guardian’s face and wonders if all human guys look that gorgeous and smiley. 

“Hi, I'm Kara, and this is Winn,” Kara introduces them. Guardian smiles at them both. Winn keeps staring as he grins.

“I'm Guardian, as you know,” he says politely, this time in a regular human voice. The robotic filter must be in the helmet.

“So do you have superpowers?” Winn asks.

“No, just some great tech and the help of some very important people. Do you?”

Winn shakes his head but Kara shows off her heat vision again. Winn groans at how much cooler Kara is than him. Guardian looks impressed too and Winn frowns. To her credit, Kara does tell him about Winn's technology skills too.

“Can I see the helmet tech?” Winn asks. Guardian nods and lets him slide it over. Winn opens up a capsule in the back and looks at the machinery. 

“It's a really cool design, super sleek. I've worked on spaceships, maybe I could make some adjustments with alien techniques and materials to make it more efficient,” Winn offers.

“You'll have to take that up with Lena. She's the one who makes and maintains all the tech stuff. And you should get used to being here before you do anything else. But I'm sure you'll be a great help. It must be easy compared to a spaceship," Guardian says, smiling again. Winn nods, hoping his blush and heart eyes aren't too obvious. 

Guardian takes a call and frowns for the first time Winn has seen. 

“Alright. I'll be right there,” he says to the person on the other end of the phone and hangs up.

“Duty calls. Gotta go save a live chicken someone locked in a fridge somehow.”

“Have fun,” Winn says as Guardian puts the helmet back on and runs out the door. Kara swoops in on Guardian’s unfinished plate and demolishes it in seconds. 

“He could have wanted to eat that!” Winn objects.

Kara smirks. “Your whole face is red.”

Winn mock-glares at her, knowing that it's true.

“I'm going to go somewhere else and see if J’onn needs anything, because I am a good citizen,” he says pointedly.

J’onn sends him to take a nap, saying that he'll have lots of work to do in the morning.

He falls down on the way to his bed when he swerves to avoid Lyra. Earth's gravity is hard to move in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I relate to this version of Winn because I, too, can't move without being personally victimized by gravity.
> 
> At least one more chapter will be up tomorrow, where Lena makes her first appearance. Mon-El won't be in this story at all. I'll try to write Cat in, but we'll see what happens.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter today because I am tired.

Winn wakes up in a nice guest room with a telepathic arachnid alien dozing across the room. He eats breakfast with Kara again. Guardian is off somewhere climbing after a parachuter who got stuck over a building. Kara cracks jokes until Lucy tells Winn that their tech person, the CEO of L-corp, is here to work on studying the salvaged tech from the ship and possible modifications for Guardian’s suit. 

“Okay. That sounds real-llyy fancy," Winn says. He doesn't really mind how classy a CEO is if it gives him an excuse to avoid Lyra.

“She just wants you to show her through some of the things you have developed that humans don't have,” Lucy promises.

Winn isn't sure that his (thankfully washed) spaceship uniform is nice enough to compare to the tech CEO lady’s silky dress and curled hair. But she greets him nicely and introduces herself as Lena Luther.

“Uh, I'm Winn.”

She nods and doesn't waste any time before looking through the tech from the ship. She asks Winn questions about everything and puts the materials under a microscope. Winn is amazed as she enters models and formulas on a computer from only a glance. This lady is smart. Winn asks her about Guardian’s helmet and the other products she's made and he's impressed by what she tells him. She’s already thinking of ways to improve the ideas and make them more useful to the DEO.

They take a spare Guardian helmet and Lena opens it, taking everything out. She and Winn re-plan the whole suit in minutes. Lena orders the first batch of new samples of the material to be manufactured at L-Corp as soon as possible. 

Kara wanders in halfway through the afternoon and chats with Lena. Winn notes her extra-happy behavior and how Lena keeps biting her lip and staring. He files the information away for later use next time Kara teases Winn about Guardian. He works on modeling the blueprint for the suit on a DEO computer after only a few minutes of struggling with the software. He spends the rest of the time on the internet, looking up everything to do with Guardian. 

By the time the workday is over, Winn has discovered the hard way that humans have clickbait too. But he's satisfied with the videos of Guardian in action, which he assures himself that he's watching to better plan the suit and not for any other reasons having to do with his crush, no matter what Kara thinks.

Lena leaves with a polite farewell and a offer to give Winn and Kara a tour of L-Corp very soon. Kara blushes as she waves.

"How the tables have turned,” Winn comments, smirking.

"I don't know what you mean," Kara says, lying badly.

Alex visits Winn again after a supper of more peanut butter and asks him to access some satellite internet from a different planet. J’onn has determined the location of the broadcasted message as a planet primarily inhabited by robots past Krypton. Winn stops looking at the newsfeed of Cat Grant narrating Guardian's daring save of the parachutist to check the feed from the Versenet and digs up encrypted files. After many unsuccessful attempts to access them, Lucy tells him to get some rest.

This time he doesn't fall down on his way to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A pretty short and useless chapter, but Lena's in it. I'm going to keep finding ways to mention Cat.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, I lied. I did not get a chapter posted last night. I fell asleep writing it and lost my edits, but I'm posting it today instead.

It takes Winn a few more Earth days and many Spacehours to get used to his new environment. He sleeps at night, not that it matters much in a windowless building he never leaves. He eats breakfast with Kara and runs away to do work to hide from Lyra. He talks to Guardian and Lena when they visit, although they both must have other jobs too.

After his endless search and many attempts to make one of the glitchy androids help him, he finds a hidden video from the Commander with more details of the situation. Lena couldn't help him much, since she doesn't know the quirks of the technology or language and is too busy flirting with Kara, so Winn had to rig up a makeshift Versenet connector satellite by himself. He calls J'onn and Lucy over to watch the video with him, giving Lucy a translator earpiece. 

The screen shows Commander Ua with their skin in scaled combat mode with spiked horns. A horn is missing, and there's blood where it should be. The camera rattles as Ua starts explaining the attack from robots misprogrammed to hunt intergalactic travelers down. 

"The robots attacked the exploration base and blasted out our, ow, defense. They're programmed to scan all types of communications and digital files to find their targets. The only way to hide is to cloak the ships and find a planet to blend in on. But it could take a long time for the Verse Exploration Feds to beat the robots, and even then, we'd have no way of contacting our people. If any of my people recieve this, I'm sorry. Just stay where you are and hide. Don't let them find you. If you have to live out your lives on uncivilized planets, then so be it."

Winn starts mentally theorizing and panicking. It's just sinking into his head that it's serious, not another of the two-Spacehour rest stops where they can just hop back on the ship or one of the field trips M'gann loved where they toured fun planets. Someone wants them dead, as much as robots can want anything. They're in real danger with nothing to do.

J'onn stands up and heads out of the room to tell the crew that they're stuck. He's powerful and commanding as ever in his green form as his cape floats. 

“Okay. We’re in here for the Long Hill, as I think the humans would say. We’ll work with the DEO to arrange a more permanent place for us and human identities for those of us who could use them. We could be here for a long time, the rest of our lives. There isn't much we can do about the robots. All we can do is hide and spend our time on Earth well.”

Winn nods. This isn't exactly what he imagined when he signed up for Exploration. All he'd wanted at the time was a chance for a fresh start and an escape from his murderer father. He didn't have anything left on his home planet, but he found a family in the crew. And maybe, just maybe, he could find another one on Earth.

He sees Guardian getting back from saving someone late that night while he’s working on eliminating any traceable evidence that the DEO computers accessed the Versenet. 

Guardian sits next to him.

“Hey,” he says softly.

“Hi,” Winn says back.

“I heard you're stuck here.”

Winn shrugs, pretending not to be freaking out. “There are worse places to be stuck. Humans are pretty cool, I think.”

Guardian takes his helmet off and smiles gently at Winn. “I like to think so too.”

Winn grins back. “Yeah, well, you're the coolest human around, Guardian.”

Guardian scratches his head. “Uh, you can call me James, actually. Guardian’s just a nickname.”

“Alright, James,” Winn says. “You're still the coolest human.”

Winn thinks James blushes. “I'm sure you're the coolest alien too.”

“Even cooler than Spork?”

“You mean Spock? From Star Trek?”

“Oh. Yeah.” 

“I'll show you Star Trek sometime. I think you'll really like it.”

Winn yawns. James pats his shoulder and tells him to get to sleep. Winn wants to keep working or talking to him, but both pairs of his eyelids are drooping and he soon snoozes in his chair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When J'onn talks about that they're in it for the "Long Hill", he means "Long Haul". I'm having some problems remembering to write the characters as speaking an alien language, but it's okay. This was a pretty sad chater to write. There'll be more angst another time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I had to make up some scientific sounding words that don't actually work here, even more than in other chapters. Also, this chapter has minor violence and someone having trouble breathing.

Winn wakes up late in his bunk where James must have carried him. He only has a minute to start moping that James had picked him up again but he missed it before Lena visits. She gets ready for lunch with him and Kara, since apparently Winn had slept into just before Earth lunchtime. He steps away after rushing through his peanut butter to get back to hiding the Versenet signature but Lena stops him.

“I already asked Lucy if you and Kara could have a break from being here to visit L-Corp. Do you want a tour?”

Winn nods eagerly, ready for a vacation and a distraction from thinking about being stranded and wondering what he'll do. He waits for Kara to grab buckets of food for the road and gets into the fancy car Lena has waiting. Kara gasps at how it rides on the ground rather than the air. Winn is impressed by the gadgets in it and glad that Kara is distracted enough for him to snatch a whole package of cookies. He looks at the gray and brown colored buildings and wonders why they don't use phosphorealon purple metal like his own planet. The L-Corp building isn't an exception with its shiny metal sides, but he's nonetheless interested in it.

Lena buzzes them into the building and Winn recalls J’onn’s warning to act like a regular human and not be suspicious. He hopes Kara won't forget and start flying around. He hopes that _he_ won't forget and stretch one of the muscles humans don't have or fall down.

Lena shows them through the labs and facilities, Winn asking about everything. L-Corp is spaceyears more advanced than what he'd expect on Earth, thanks to Lena’s genius. Lena is leading the projects on geneology and identifying a person's background and condition through medical nanotechnology. They aren't allowed into the high-security area, which Lena says might be dangerous. She finishes with showing them through the list of patents they have and walks with them towards the exit, pointiing out the displays of whirring gizmos and cool-looking prototypes. Winn touches one and it scans his body and shows a result on the screen, including some English words he doesn't know, an outline of his skeleton with all 312 bones, that he's been under stress and having problems dealing with gravity, and a map of the galaxy showing his origin planet. Winn gawks at the scan and pushes Kara into his place so it can scan her. Lena tells them to wait outside a building while she fetches some paperwork.

Winn smirks at Kara when he thinks Lena can't hear. “You're into her.” 

The scan on the screen saying that she's been romantically frustrated recently doesn't help Kara's pathetic protests. She unconvincingly denies it before they hear a crunch and something explode. Kara starts coughing, hitting the ground hard. Winn panics. Kara’s strong, too strong to be incapacitated by anything less than a terrifying weapon. Which must mean it could totally kill him too, with his weak grip on gravity and lack of superpowers.

He yells something out before he feels his triple lungs contracting too. He can still stand for once as he starts retching. He's not affected as badly as Kara, who’s on the ground with her eyes leaking tears and choking. He hears footsteps and Lena’s panicked voice yelling for someone to help as Kara passes out. He tries to say something to her but just spits out fluid and topples over. 

Guardian appears before Winn can reach her. Winn’s never been more glad to see someone in his life, even when M'gann saved him from a zombie fish in a very unpleasant star system. James picks up Kara with one arm and pulls Winn over his other shoulder and leaps to meet the DEO vehicle that's arrived. 

He sets Kara on the stretcher and puts Winn down next to him. M’gann starts working on Kara, asking Winn if he'd been hit too. He nods and coughs. M’gann puts her hands on Kara’s chest and tells Guardian to take his helmet off and do the same to Winn. 

Winn feels strong hands pushing on his chest as he shuts his eyes and loses consciousness on the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "the floor is being in love with James" *Winn dramatically passes out on the ground*


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter talks about an injection and some minor injury and a sort of hospital situation.

Winn wakes up in a bed back at the DEO. Kara is sitting up by now, staring over at him. J’onn is pacing, occasionally pausing to look at Winn. James is there too, sweaty Guardian suit only partly removed. M'gann is standing next to Kara and checking a machine she's attached to. 

Winn looks down and sees bruises on his own shirtless chest. His arm has a bandage over where he must have been injected with something. He winces, glad that he hadn't been awake for that. The movement pulls his guts uncomfortably tight and he grunts.

James and J’onn both hurry to his side. All Kara can do is wave to him from her bed and call for Alex to come in.

“Schott, you're alright. I shouldn't have let you out of the DEO like that,” J'onn says.

"He's been worrying since he found out," James comments, putting his translator mouthpiece on.

“It's okay, Papa Bear. It wasn't your fault," Winn tells him.

“And I should have gotten there sooner,” James says.

“Aw. Don't worry, man, you did save us,” Winn comforts him. "And hey, at least I won't be able to fall down now since I'm already in a bed!"

James hands him a bouquet of bright Earth flowers Winn's never seen then steps away scratching his neck and turning pink.

“Uh, Lena, she, uh, told me to give you these.”

“Oh. Thanks,” Winn says, remembering what Alex says about gifts of flowers being reserved for people important to the sender. He's disappointed that they aren't from James, but not quite delirious enough to say so. He also shuts down the impulse to call out James's blushing. _It's probably just an Earth thing._

"Is she okay?" Winn asks, finally remembering how close Lena had been to the incident.

“She's fine. You and Kara were the only ones hurt. It seems like there was a gas released that was only harmful to people with non-Earth DNA, or geared directly toward your genetic makeup. It acted on Kara first because her DNA meant she evolved on a red-sun planet, while yours was yellow like this one. That's also why she recovered more quickly. And J’onn thinks you were targeted,” James explains.

“It couldn't have been an accident,” J’onn says. “Lena Luthor walks away and Kara said you got scanned by a machine that knew everything about you, and then you just happen to get sprayed with an anti-alien gas?”

“Lena was the one who called for help,” James objects. 

“I trust her,” Kara says. 

“You don't know her,” Alex says in a broken voice, speaking for the first time since Winn woke up. She doesn't look well at all from worrying about Kara. She must have left the room because she couldn't stand seeing Kara so hurt. “Look, I didn't tell you this before because she seemed fine, but when I left, her brother had just been convicted of some really bad stuff. He’s killed people if he thought they were risks to his corporation. He only cares about his own money and power, Kara. He's a ruthless killer. And it turns out that after I left, his mother was in on it too. She was too slippery to be actually convicted of anything, but she had to resign for the public eye and give up control of the company to Lena. But we don't know. They could be working together.”

“And that's proof that Lena’s bad how?” Kara demands, voice shaking. 

“Guys. We have to at least talk to Lena and hear what she says,” James says, the voice of reason.

"We can't talk to her! She's dangerous!" Alex yells.

"Alex, it's fi-," Kara tries to say.

"No! It isn't! You and Winn could have died because I didn't do a good enough job protecting you from her!"

M'gann starts talking to Alex, soothing her. James breaks the awkwardness by telling Winn that Lyra had tried to visit him and everyone was worried. An alien bug that could respawn had even offered to take the poison out of him.

Kara and Winn both groan at the mention of Lyra. Winn starts feeling self-conscious without a shirt on. He looks around for his uniform shirt but doesn't see it, just getting a headache from the movement.

“Can I have, uh,” he gestures down, “a shirt?” 

James nods and says that he keeps some spare ones downstairs. 

When Winn falls back asleep, he's snuggling in one of James’s oversized sweaters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's not really a headcanon, since it's my own fic, but headcanon that after they had to take Winn's shirt off, James stole it. Also, wow Alex is angsty and nobody likes Lyra. I really love the idea of James bringing Winn flowers and giving him a sweater that's too big, since he's so much taller than Winn. If anyone were to draw that, I would love you forever.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has totally BS technobogus stuff. I doubt any of my made up words would actually work, so don't think too much about it. And thanks for waiting for this update, I'm pretty forgetful. Feel free to leave a comment and remind me to post.

Lena visits again a few days later, bringing more flowers for Winn and Kara. 

She sits at a table with Lucy, Alex, J’onn, Winn, and Kara, powering on the translator and starting to explain what she knows before anyone can even say hi, although not before Alex can glare at her. 

“So, it’s obvious that you've been targeted. I didn't tell any of my employees that I was bringing guests. The reason I had the alien-DNA targeting gas was that it was my brother's. It's a prototype that Lex engineered years ago to target certain people by DNA, enemies of his. I modified it when Lex tried to set it off in a town that wouldn't do what he wanted. I was able to change its structure so it'd be safe for anyone born on Earth to inhale no matter what DNA it was programmed to go after. I succeeded at making it safe for humans and saving the lives of Lex’s enemies. I didn't know that people from outside of Earth existed, so I figured it wouldn't be dangerous to anyone anymore." 

Lena looks at Alex's disbelieving face but starts speaking again. "I had been working on a way to have it destroyed since I started working with you, but it's almost impossible to get rid of it without spreading it. Someone knew that it was there and tried to kill you, or at least prove that you're aliens. It couldn't have been released earlier than you were scanned or you would have felt it before. And they would have to be monitoring the DEO too to guess that you're aliens."

Lena pauses and reflects before continuing. "It was someone with power at L-Corp, and that's why I'm suggesting you cut ties with this corporation. I'll be working back at L-Corp to contain the gas and see who had access to the area and might want you dead. In the meantime, I’d advise removing all L-Corp tech, or monitoring the cameras and security systems with other products. I won’t be visiting anymore until the situation is resolved for your own safety, and I’d recommend none of you go anywhere the facility. L-Corp will reinburse anything you have to change.”

Lena strides out before anyone can respond, elegant as always. Kara watches her walk away and holds onto the flowers.

Winn sighs. He just wants his friends to be happy. 

“I read her mind,” J’onn announces in English. Alex has taught him many phrases.

“And?” Alex prompts.

“She wasn’t lying, but something was wrong. Her brain’s been messed with. Parts of her memory has been taken out. It’s possible that she ordered it altered herself if she knew I would read her mind. Or she could have had nothing to do with it. She could be carwashed."

"What?" Lucy asks.

"What humans call it when someone controls your mind."

"Mind control?" James suggests.

"Oh, I know this, uh, brainwashed!" Winn says.

“Well, we have to tell her she's being controlled!” Kara exclaims.

“We can’t. Not yet,” Lucy says calmly. 

"She's certainly right that we have to stay away from L-Corp for now. If she scans any obviously non-humanoid alien, we'd be screwed."

An alarm rings in the distance and James stands up. 

“Winn, could you get on comms with me? Someone from L-Corp usually does that stuff, but…” James asks.

Winn nods, excited to be helping Guardian do cool stuff. He clumsily hops over to the chair he’s permanently claimed as his own and finds out what’s happening as Guardian heads over to the part of the city where the noise is coming from. He reactivates the translator and starts chattering through it.

“Alright, so, there’s apparently a home for senior citizen humans falling down, so that’s no good. Take a few more lefts and you'll see a huge complex. It's the one with a floor caving in. Could take me a bit to get into the security system to let you in, it's made to keep the old people from wandering out. Ah, but I'm in. The main doors are open, but I really wouldn’t recommend going through them if you don't want it collapsing more. Take the fire escape on the south side of the building to the second floor and the regular stairs up from there. Most of the rooms are 4 floors up, but most of them should be eating in the cafeteria on the second floor. I'm gonna have to get into each of the staircases individually since they all lock separately.”

He hears some thumps and then James talking again.

“Alright, I'm on the south of floor two. Where to now?”

“Ah! I see you on the cameras, which I should not legally be looking at according to laws of Earth and the Exploration Alliance. But blueprints say that there’s four hallways, uh, see the two that are closest together?”

“Yeah?”

“Take the one on your … left.”

He sees James running on the left hallway cameras and compares them to the blueprints. Each floor is unnecessarily complicated, probably to get the old people stuck before they get too far from where they’re supposed to be. Winn keeps giving James directions for every twist. He guides James on a quick detour to pick up one elderly lady who must be lost before he reaches the cafeteria. 

“Marise!” a younger woman, possibly the woman’s daughter or caretaker, yells. 

James stares down through the hole in the floor. 

“What do I do?” he asks Winn.

“Uh, working on it.” He types something out and checks his notes on Guardian’s suit. 

“Okay. You have a laser, crowbar, and that welding torch thing, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Hah. That sounds like one of your Earth jokes. A laser, a crowbar, and a torch walk into a bar… wait, there's already own crowbar..."

“Winn!”

“Sorry, sorry. Okay, laser down through the floor to the lower left of the hole and make two curved cuts so you have a pointed oval shape. Then just drop down through it. Try not to land too hard.”

“Alright, I'm down,” James reports, after a thunking noise.

“Okay. So you have to just hold the structural integrity of the brace and steady it with the crowbar. And then you're just going to melt it into the framework.”

“Will one crowbar really help?”

“If we do it right, yeah. That's where the weak spot that's collapsing is. We just have to make it hold a few more minutes. Ambulances are already on their way.”

James works through the fusion process with his tools, giving Winn time to start anticipating what routes the first responders will travel through the building. 

“Okay. It's steady for the moment. You can help the paramedics get everyone out.”

James nods and Winn watches on the cameras as he helps carry out several people at once. 

When James finishes and gets back to the DEO, Winn is already sitting down with two plates of James’s favorite pasta. 

“You're a hero too now,” James tells him.

Winn chuckles. “I'm not you. I just helped out.”

James smiles. “Whatever you say, Winn. Good job today. I'm going to, uh, shower.”

Winn tries not to watch as James pulls his sweaty shirt off and walks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may be a hecking lesbian, but James Jimberly Olsen is such a beautiful man


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is more of a fun goofy part. It's mostly a sweet fluffy trip to the zoo and Winn being awkward. There's less plot and a little more romance than some other chapters, but it's still gonna take a while for Winn and James to actually date. It will happen, I promise, but it'll take some time for my lesbian ass to figure out how to write romance between men.

Winn gets more used to his Earth environment. J’onn goes with him and Kara to take a walk to the bakery two blocks over, saying that they might as well get used to it. Neither he nor Kara complains as they try quite a selection of pastries and J’onn watches like an irritated father. He pays with DEO money and glares until Winn and Kara leave with him to go back to the DEO.

“Oh, come on,” Winn whines at the door to the DEO facility. “I don't want to go back in there. Lyra keeps trying to flirt with me and I want to get away from her. Besides, it's been weeks since the last time we went out-”

“Where you and Kara could have died.”

“We've been bored! There's only so much to do in the DEO, even helping Guardian save people. Haven't we earned a break?”

Kara takes his side. “You said we should get used to being here. Why don't we take more of a field trip and find out stuff about Earth so we can blend in better?”

J’onn relents at the sight of both Winn and Kara’s pleading faces. 

“Fine. As long as Lucy and Guardian are with you. I'd say take Alex, but her disappearance was highly publicized when she went into space and someone could recognize her. And no superpowers or anything a human couldn't do. That means no twisting your neck 500 degrees, Winn. Try to use the English you've picked up."

Kara cheers. Winn gulps at the prospect of walking around with James.

Kara bounces into the DEO and calls for James and Lucy. Winn follows her as she pulls Lucy out of her seat and asks her if she's doing anything important and lifts off the ground to find James before Lucy’s even started answering.

A few minutes later, the four of them stand in the DEO entrance with civilian clothes. Even James isn’t wearing his suit, instead in jeans and a cardigan. Lucy has to explain to Winn that he can't wear a mobster suit like in Alex’s movies, so he finds a vest and beanie. 

Lucy shrugs. “Good enough.”

She and James sit in the front seats of her car, with Winn and Kara in the back. 

“You said the zoo?” Lucy asks from the driver’s seat. 

“Yeah!” Kara says, bouncing around enough to make Winn worry about the car’s durability.

Lucy is a surprisingly reckless driver, turning sharply enough to make Winn, Kara, and even James reach for something to grab. 

When they eventually get out of the car, Winn slides out like a puddle onto the ground. James smiles down at him and offers a hand.

He groans as James pulls him up by the arm. “You humans have public transport we can use on the way back, right?”

Kara hops out of the car with sunglasses on to keep her from x-raying something by mistake. Lucy has shaded sunglasses too, but appears to only be wearing them to look cool as she lectures Winn about not saying 'you humans' in public.

Kara leaps around in the entry line like one of the overexcited human toddlers Winn has seen screaming. Lucy rolls her eyes behind her sunglasses and has James walk next to Winn as they start going through the exhibits. 

Winn gawks at the bored-looking sharks while Lucy explains to Kara that the animals are okay in the enclosures.

“I've never seen ones with flat bodies before. Back home we didn't have water more than a few feet deep and the fish were all tiny and round.”

James nods, always interested in hearing about Winn’s planet Versid V. 

“So there weren't any oceans?” he asks Winn.

“There were some wide lakes, but no places deep enough for oceans to collect, and it was too flat for rivers. Everyone who lived there was really good at walking through water, but we never had to swim.”

“Wow,” James says. Winn can tell that he doesn't want to be talking about other planets in public but really wants to know. But as long as Winn doesn't mention anything explicitly from outer space, people will probably just assume he's visiting from some far-off country, like the ‘Middle-Earth’ or ‘Wonderland’ he keeps hearing about. 

“Yeah. It was a pretty large place, but there were only a few thousand inhabitants when I left.”

“Why did you leave?” James asks curiously, then immediately apologizes. “Sorry, I shouldn't be asking.”

“No, no, it's fine. Uh, my dad got sent to an off-planet prison and it was really public and the whole place knew and it was a pretty big deal because he killed a bunch of people, so I just wanted to get away. When the ship came to take him to prison, I asked if I could go along and find a job somewhere else. I got a permit and then things just sort of happened.”

James smiles at him as widely as he always does. “I know that can't have been fun, but for what it's worth, I'm glad you're here.”

Winn smiles and gestures dramatically to his heart. James catches him when he miscalculates the movement and almost falls again.

Winn looks up at him as he's set back on his feet and wants to reach up for him. He's aware of James's dark eyes staring back down at him before he snaps himself away to follow Kara to the monkey house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I headcanon Lucy as a really scary driver. Also, did you catch the vague Easter eggs with Jeremy’s different roles when Winn doesn't know how to dress like a human? I spent some time on Wikipedia looking that shit up. And also somehow ended up on a page about 19th century Finnish politics, so oops?
> 
> And thank you all for tolerating my writing. I'm finding it hard to write romance between men, just because I'm a lesbian.


	11. Chapter 11

Lucy is driving them back against Winn's will when James has to pick up a call. He sighs and answers it.

“Alex, h-, what- we- okay.”

Alex hangs up on the other end of the phone and James leans over to Lucy. “We can't go back to the DEO right now. Alex was really vague about what happened. Lucy, just keep driving somewhere.”

Lucy speeds away, taking random turns as if she was trying to get away from someone on her trail. Winn’s head hits the window hard when Lucy makes an abrupt right swerve and he yelps. James turns around in his seat to ask if he's okay. He nods. 

Alex calls again minutes later to inform them that the DEO was attacked with the gas. It hadn't been programmed for anyone's specific DNA, but engineered to kill all non-Earth born aliens. Everyone was able to get out in time thanks to a warning they got from an anonymous person and the skill of a blue Modorian with psychic abilities, but the DEO facility would be too dangerous for any alien to be near for weeks, and in the future they should not have everyone in a building where they could all be taken out in one strike. 

“Where are we going to go?” Winn asks. 

“We’ll find something,” Lucy promises.

“Uh, if there's nowhere else, my place is pretty close,” James offers, looking at Lucy like she knows something. 

Lucy nods and drives to it. Winn notices that she doesn't ask for directions. James opens the door and holds it for the others.

“It's a mess,” James apologizes. None of them have any problems with the sweaters he clears off the ground by the couch. Winn wonders what he wears under the sweaters. Probably layers of more sweaters. 

Alex swings by hours of snacking on James’s leftovers with her eyes drooping and her arm bandaged. 

Kara rushes to her. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“I'm fine,” Alex says tiredly and sits down next to Winn. 

“Well, what happened?” James asks when she doesn't answer. 

Alex groans. “Okay, so we got this anonymous call warning us to check the vents and evacuate. We thought it was a weird and well-informed prank from someone who somehow knew that we were harboring extraterrestrials. But we had Golejarc check psychically, just to be safe, and he said something was a threat, and I could smell it. We had to evacuate everyone, and the police showed up because they thought it was a gas leak. I got cut crawling through the vents to try to find where it was coming from, but all I got was a remotely detonated device. Everyone was okay, but it's not comforting how easy someone got a killer device into the building and we’re having to find accommodations for every alien there. And some of them are gelatinous or insects or have gills. But someone did tip us off and I don't understand."

“If it'd help, someone can stay with me,” James volunteers.

“Alright. Kara can be in my old apartment since we're practically sisters anyway," Alex says. "Winn, would you mind being in James’s flat?”

“Uh, that'll be fine,” Winn says, sweating. Kara smirks at him as Alex gives her basic instructions on how to drive, since she's too tired to do it herself. Lucy smiles at James while she excuses herself too.

James shows Winn around his apartment, pointing out the bathroom and extra bedroom. Winn doesn't say much for fear of overstepping until James plops back in front of the television.

"I did promise I'd show you bad sci-fi movies," James says.

"Are you and Lucy dating?" Winn eventually asks him. "I can't tell if it's like, a regular human relationship or friendship or..."

"No, we had a thing a few years ago but we agreed to end it so I could be Guardian and she could work harder for the DEO."

Winn nods. "So you've been Guardian for years?"

"Yeah. I was working for Cat Grant's company as a photographer and then I realized that I wanted to do more. I told her and she helped me contact the DEO and get the suit. Since then, I've been Guardian, and she sometimes still hires me to take pictures. She pays me a lot better than could be expected for a few snapshots because she knows I don't get much from the government, but nobody questions it."

"That's so rad," Winn says, mimicking the language of the old movie that's muted on the television.

James laughs. "What do you say I put on Alien?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is all I currently have written. It's not the end of the story obviously, but now I'll have to actually write new chapters instead of posting old ones I've had written for weeks. I also have a few one-shot ideas that we'll see what happens. Thank you for reading this chapter, even if it's less interesting and more background on James.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't posted in a few days because instead of working on this, I cranked out a 800-word goofy AU fic. Read it for Scholsen and Barrisco if you want: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11384904

Winn loses interest after they finish the movie and James turns the news on. James sees his yawn and stands up. He gestures for Winn to follow but Winn just rolls over. James bends and picks him up easily. Winn is suddenly very awake as James's hand steadies him under the highest joint of his knees. 

James carries him to the guest bedroom and tells Winn to feel free to get a toothbrush out of the bathroom and use his toothpaste. Winn smiles at him and James thinks that he's never seen anything cuter.

Winn wakes up hours later and is glad that this time he remembers James carrying him. He tries to use a toothbrush but quickly comes to realize that it's different than the cleaning fluid he always had on the ship. He puts on the very oversized and very fluffy pajama pants and sweater James had left for him but takes his shirt off. 

He walks to the kitchen and sees three unopened jars of peanut butter set out with a spoon and a note from James.

"'Hey, had to leave on G-business,'" Winn reads aloud. "Guardian business? 'Feel free to get comfy and hang out here. Use my computer if you want. L should be over soon with news.' L is Lucy, maybe? Oh and he drew a smiley face. Aww."

He puts the note down and opens James's laptop. He figures out James's password based on the note taped to the screen that looks like it's been there for a while and isn't just for James's benefit.

Winn doesn't know what to do. He looks at the news websites James has saved and clicks on a story about the DEO explosion. He's learned enough English to understand.

It's not referred to as the DEO in the article. Apparently the public was told that it's a very secretive law firm. It shows pictures of the barriers put up to make sure nobody saw the aliens and an image of a pretty police officer quoted as Sawyer. She'd apparently said that it was a leak. The reporter ends the article saying that they're glad everyone was okay, but asking where the hell Guardian had been during the ordeal. 

Winn looks at the comments against his better judgement to see a Facebook user typing horrible things about Guardian and someone on Twitter speculating that the supposed leak wasn't an accident and was instead linked to Lexforce, a group of people committing atrocities in Lex Luthor's name. 

Winn reads the other articles tagged as Lexforce. Apparently they went back since even before Lex was imprisoned, but had continued his work of killing anyone they deemed dangerous. Guardian had tried time and time again to stop them, but every time at least some had gotten away. Winn feels sure that the DEO was after them too, so it's scarier to him how much they'd escaped. Winn refreshes the main site of the news and sees the latest story featuring Guardian getting people out of a flooding house. It had been posted only a few minutes earlier.

_"I'm thinking in minutes now? Maybe I really am adapting to Earth,"_ Winn thinks.

James unlocks his apartment door and comes in with a fresh grocery bag of peanut butter. Winn sighs lovesickly. 

"I see you hacked into my computer," James jokes. Winn grimaces until James laughs. "I gotta go clean," he says. "Since apparently now the DEO is out of order for a little while and the new base of ops is here."

Lucy and J'onn show up first, then Alex brings Kara and the Sawyer detective from the radio. Winn stares at her. 

"This is Maggie," Alex introduces the woman to Winn. "She's a detective and she's working with us to help cover everything up and get whoever's behind the attack. We've told her everything, about you, the DEO, and what we know about L-Corp. Maggie, this is Winn. He's a humanoid from the planet Versus V and more technologically adapt than any human or alien I've met."

"Aww," Winn fake-swoons at Alex's complement. She glares at him to remind him that she could still totally take him out. Maggie extends a hand and Winn shakes it. Alex glares harder. 

J'onn starts rattling off plans about something. Winn can't listen as much as wonder what's up with Alex and why she's staring at Maggie. Winn tunes them all out and goes back to watching James wipe sweat off his forehead in slow motion. Winn blinks all his eyelids to watch with a better view and relaxes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of Sanvers! I'm not tagging them yet but I will once I have more of a plan for them. Winn is thirsty a-f. And in this fic, I'm ignoring canon's choice of cast for Maggie.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a pretty long (1100 words oops) and confusing chapter in my opinion. If anyone doesn't understand, notes at the end will explain.

Winn can get used to James's apartment and his endless stock of peanut butter. He can even get used to James waking him up in the middle of the night if he needs help accessing a blueprint or needs someone on communications with him. 

Winn is less likely to get used to James’s constant exercise. Of course, James has to work out shirtless in the office right across from where Winn is trying to work on tracking Lexforce and the gas attacks.

Winn refreshes the CatCo news page to distract himself for the fourth time in as many minutes. This time, there's a new story up for him to read. 

“James,” he calls.

James runs over, still holding hand weights, and sets them down next to Winn to lean uncomfortably close and read the article over his shoulder. 

“‘Lena Luthor missing - Lexforce allegiance suspected since the CEO’s disappearance last week,’” Winn reads. “Oh, this is bad. Also, Kara's going to be pissed.”

“I'll see if Lucy’s got any leads,” James says, picking up his phone. “Oh, wow, I just got, uh, this.”

He shows Winn the anonymous message of a few symbols and lots of empty space. Winn stares at it. 

“It could be some kind of code,” he theorizes. “Or an error, maybe? Oh, nope. The symbols that do show up have alternate pronunciations in the general Translated Universal alien language and they make some kind of phrase. Just a sec, let me reconfigure it.”

James stares as Winn copies it into a computer document and starts speaking it.

“Okay, there's an ‘L’ sound, then an ‘eh’, ‘kuh’, ‘es’, ‘fo’-”

“Lexforce?” James suggests. 

“Oh yeah, that's what it spells. So not an accident. If I'm right, that's just going to be the simplest layer of the message, probably to get our attention.”

“Alright,” James says. “I'm going to call Lucy and tell her. Would you keep working on it?”

Winn nods and starts typing. He highlights the empty space and sees faint outlines of boxes around blank characters. He turns the brightness up and screenshots. He runs each box through a symbol translator and gets a result back. He notices within a minute that they're all Kryptonian symbols, or the closest representation Earth computers would allow. Winn knows a little bit of Kryptonian, but not enough to understand the mess in front of him. He asks James to call Alex and get Kara when Lucy pauses on the other end to speak to J’onn.

Kara arrives in a few minutes with M’gann behind. Winn’s excited to see M’gann for the first time since he left the DEO.

“Mama Bear,” he says, hugging her. She makes eye contact with Kara and shrugs in Winn’s arms.

They sit at the desk in James’s office that Winn has taken for his own and he explains the situation. 

“Ah. It was Alex’s idea to have me come too, since I know more languages than both of you,” M’gann says. “I hope I can be of help.”

Kara doesn't look so sure. “Are we going to be hunting for Lena?” she asks.

“We’re trying to find her, and figuring out this message might help,” M’gann says to an unconvinced Kara. “Look at it like this: if she's innocent, we won't be able to prove it and clear her name until we find her. Lexforce could be hurting her.”

Kara nods and Winn admires M’gann’s skill at comforting her. They start working on translating the Kryptonian symbols. Kara can get a general meaning of each word, but they don't seem to be grouped together in any succession except for a few words here and there. Winn tries reading them right-left and down-up but they still don't make sense.

M’gann points to a symbol in the center. “What's that?” 

“I don't recognize it,” Kara says, frowning.

“It could be some kind of key,” Winn says. 

“Well, it looks like some kind of box,” Kara says.

“It is a box!” Winn exclaims. 

“Yeah, that's what I…” Kara tells him.

“No, we’re reading it two-dimensionally as a rectangle. It's a box. If I just… there.”

The text scrambles and rearranges at his typed command and Kara starts reading it again. 

“‘Earth belongs to the humans. Leave, occupants of SpaceVessel 113. Lexforce will never be afraid to protect our home from invaders like you. We’ll will wipe you from this planet.”

“Well. It makes sense now,” Winn says to break the silence. “They're giving us an eviction notice.”

“We can't leave!” M’gann yells, frustration driving her to shout. “We don't have a ship and we'd be disobeying orders and probably die anyway or compromise the entire universe if we leave!”

She calms herself slightly. “Kara, did you notice anything that seemed out of place in the text? Something with part of a letter missing, or odd grammar?”

“Uh, yes. I don't get why they phonetically spelled out ‘We’ll will’. It seems pretty out of character to just have an error.

“There could be another message,” Winn says, zooming in where Kara points to the word. 

“There's a layer of color over the text there,” M’gann comments. “Just for part of the word.” 

“I don't see it,” Winn says, squinting. “It must be a color most of us can't see. Can you see if it appears anywhere else?”

M’gann nods and scans it, shapeshifting into a form with better eyesight to point them out. 

“They each only cover part of a word. The first one, according to the box order we used, is an ‘l’ at the beginning of a syllable in ‘belongs’. Next is a vowel, the ‘ih’ in the second syllable of ‘humans’. Another ‘l’ in ‘will’ and one starting a new syllable in ‘like’. There's the ‘ee’ Kara noticed in ‘we’ and there's two sounds at the end. ‘Ah-en’.’

“Lihl-lee-an. Like Lillian Luthor?” Kara suggests. 

Winn remembers the name but looks her up again. “‘Disgraced ex-CEO of L-Corp, was forced to resign all public working after exposed for supporting her son Lex’s work.’ Sounds like someone we should definitely be looking into.”

“We know it was Lena who sent the message, right? Nobody else would have known all the languages and symbols. She could have sneaked Lillian’s name as a clue without anyone knowing, since they wouldn't be able to translate it or see the invisible color,” Kara says. “She must have had to put it in code so Lillian wouldn't notice or get mad for making a violent threat that could easily be traced back to them.”

Winn nods. “That makes sense. We're going to find her, Kara.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this long and not very coherent chapter. It doesn't have much James, but I thought it was necessary for the plot. And it was super fun to write the decoding part.
> 
> So, what happened was:
> 
> Winn was thirsting over James when he sees an article that Lena Luthor is missing
> 
> James opens his phone and gets this coded message
> 
> Message at first glance is empty space and a few characters
> 
> Characters translate in Universal alien language to "Lexforce"
> 
> Winn looks up the empty space and finds out that it's actually Kryptonian symbols 
> 
> He, Kara, and M'gann crack the code until it rearranges into a message from Lexforce threatening aliens to leave
> 
> M'gann sees that there's a hidden message "Lillian" in the text
> 
> They think Lexforce took Lena and Lillian made Lena write a threatening message
> 
> But Lena snuck a hint to Lillian in the message
> 
> And Kara's sure that Lena is innocent


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some peril and dramatic supervillains and James and Winn make some ... questionable decisions in this chapter. Winn also gets drugged and hallucinates a little. I planned on splitting this all into two chapters but I didn't. This is another longer chapter with more plot, so I'll summarize it in the end notes.

Winn frowns. He's spent weeks trying to work on two jobs at once- tracking Lena and Lillian and monitoring the Lexforce attacks. 

Lena Luthor hasn't been reported seen since the article was written. Lillian has been around town, but hasn't made a comment. She's been keeping to herself since her resignation from L-Corp and even J'onn can't follow her for more than a few minutes before she disappears.

Winn has an algorithm running predicting the most convenient places for Lillian to hide based on her last sightings and guesses about what she could be working on. It shows zones of potential activity.

Winn needs more information to narrow down the potential hideouts, so he reads up on Lena and Lillian’s files. He has legal access to the DEO information, and illegal access to the other government files isn't that hard for him to get. He warns James that if the FBI shows up at the apartment, it’s for him hacking them. James just laughs.

He sets up a scanner for news reports and messages relating to Lexforce. Notifications start showing up immediately, but he has to manually sort through the relevance. Winn can even look back at old reports from before Lex was even arrested.

He starts graphing them by time, severity, and location. The older ones seem to be centered around the current L-Corp building, but he pinpoints the moment that, after Lillian resigned, they started shifting east. He sets up a different chart marking the dates of the strikes. Winn sees that they'd been happening frequently and spiked when Lex was arrested, then almost stopped entirely. Recently they've been happening more and more, and larger dots show that they're almost constant and becoming more deadly. Winn squints at the map.

“James,” he calls, “I think I've found a few hotspots where Lillian could be centering her operation around.”

James sits next to him and smiles encouragingly as Winn points it out.

“See, the thing is,” Winn explains, “these dots on the map are all their recent attacks. And they're trying to make it look random, but it'll still be centered around an epicenter point as they try to not have all incidents in one direction from their base. I calculated an area around three square miles that’s right in the middle of everything they've done recently. They must be passing through that area a lot. I've got a list of warehouses and places they could be.”

James nods. “So I could go find them? Like, right now?” 

“Yeah, in theory. They might still get away though, and I can't guarantee they're in there or that they aren't prepared for us. Also, I'm wearing pajamas.”

Winn runs off to change and finds James standing in his Guardian suit. 

“Are you sure we shouldn't wait for backup?” Winn asks.

“We don't really know if we'll find them anyway. And the DEO is busy cleaning up after last night’s attack. I have to go find them now. Your graph itself says that they're getting more deadly."

“You can't. You may live here, but you don't know the theory of the algorithm like I do. I can list locations in your ear all day, and we could still miss something if I'm not with you. Besides, I already got dressed.”

James nods. “Okay. If anything goes bad, use my extra phone and call Lucy. And get away as fast as you can.”

Winn nods. He knows it's a bad idea to go without backup, but James is right. And he wants to prove his worth to J’onn and James and himself. 

James takes his suit back off to get to his van, making Winn wonder why he'd put it on in the first place. He offers his hand to Winn, who takes it to step up the few inches to the van. He justifies his blush by the fact that he'd probably fall down without holding James’s hand. 

Winn drives the van. He doesn't have a license, but he can figure it out easily enough to get the van to the area mapped. He parks and steps out with James to look at it.

“Okay, this is spot number one out of nine, a warehouse just like in the movies. Creepy, deserted, or so we think. If a ghost jumps out at me, I'm gonna pass out,” Winn says.

James is disappointed not to find anything at that stop. But that's probably better than what they could find.

They run through the list Winn has, getting less worried each time. Winn halts the van on the way to the fifth of nine stops. 

“A fool. I'm a fool,” he says. 

James frowns. “You're a genius.”

“I missed something,” Winn tells him. “There's not just one epicenter everything is built around, but two. L-Corp has to be one, and the other is going to be right here,” he points to a spot east of the L-Corp building. “Everything else is going to be between these two and a ways to the north or south.”

Winn runs the new calculations through and confirms the location. It's more specific than the other algorithm, only spitting out one building. He checks its info and blueprints.

“A shut-down museum. The city keeps proposing to knock it down, but they never do. I'll bet Lillian Luthor is buying them off.”

Winn drives again and parks less than a block from the museum. James has his Guardian suit on when they step out. 

Together they walk to the large rotating museum doors. James uses a tool on his suit to pick the lock and disable the alarm. They start heading through the stripped hallways. It looks deserted enough, with nothing left except a sign to some part of the gallery dangling by one edge and an old vending machine. 

James covers Winn’s mouth as someone comes around the corner with a flashlight and shoves him behind the vending machine. 

James stuffs himself in too. Winn breathes heavily, pressed against the armor on James’s chest. It's cramped enough that he swears he can feel James's muscles. 

He breathes regular again when the woman is gone. James exhales to fit his body out from behind the machine and grabs Winn's arm to keep the alien from knocking the machine over as he gets out.

“Well, if someone else is here when it's supposed to be closed, we're in the right spot.”

“We’re also in a tight spot,” Winn jokes, cracking up at their previous situation and the double meaning. 

James and Winn head in the direction they'd seen the person coming from, James using a night-vision program on his helmet and guiding Winn to the central room he'd pointed out in for blueprint with a hand on his waist. 

James guides Winn down a set of stairs and then James's arm is gone and Winn is thrown backwards. Alarms go off and he hears the thunk of doors sealing. His head hits something hard and a liquid trickles down his back. The lights go on and let him see a woman speaking. He can tell from the profile that it matches the picture on file for Lillian Luthor.

“Guardian. Or should I say James. And you brought your smart little alien friend. Did you really think I wouldn't know you were coming? I had hoped that you'd listen to my warning."

“Whoa,” Winn says, sitting up from the ground. “How many times have you rehearsed that speech, lady?”

“Guardian, you can live for now. You're trying to do the right thing. Maybe one day you can figure out that you could help us do it, the right way. But Wint here, we need him. Not alive, per se, but-”

Winn sees her fly backwards from one of Guardian’s punches. Then he's being lifted into the air and James is asking if he's okay. He doesn't feel like answering. His head feels like a different weight than it usually is, but he can't tell if it's lighter or heavier. The walls of the open area move around him.

Winn looks over James’s shoulder and sees another woman he knows, even though she's spinning along with the rest of the room.

Lena isn't looking so good. Her hair is unwashed and one of her eyes is swollen shut. Her clothes are ripped and dirty and she looks ready to pass out. But she makes eye contact with Winn with her working eye.

“You're stuck here,” Lillian continues monologuing melodramatically with her bloody jaw from the punch making her lisp. “The doors are locked with L-Corp technology. There's no way out.”

Lena stands up shakily. “Mother, there's no way to let them go without Olsen telling the whole DEO where we're hiding.”

_Is she arguing for them to hurt James?_

“No matter,” says Lillian. “All we need is the alien. Then we'll be able to annihilate them all.”

Something springs loose and a door opens. James doesn't hesitate before bolting out of it and running with Winn to the van, knocking the remnants of the gallery sign down.

“Winn, are you okay?” James asks, getting out his phone to call Lucy.

Winn wonders why the van is turning without a driver and changing colors.

“James. Jim. Jimmy. Jimothy. Jimberly. You have really nice muscles. Like, you have less hair than a Falcton egg on Rock Planet but you're still ridiculously hot,” Winn tells him, slipping in and out of English.

“Winn!” James yells as Winn goes limp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recap:
> 
> Winn makes a chart of the Lexforce attacks and gets some locations to try to find Lena and Lillian
> 
> They decide to go check out the locations alone because the DEO is busy
> 
> Winn recalculates the location and leads James to a shut down museum
> 
> Lillian shoots at them and an experimental liquid spills on Winn
> 
> Lena talks to Lillian and some part of Lillian's technology goes wrong so they can escape
> 
> James carries Winn back to fve van and Winn starts talking about how hot James is before he passes out


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapter but it's gonna be midnight and I haven't posted in days....

Winn wakes up again in the van with a stink around him. James is next to him on a chair with a hand on his forehead. 

Winn sits up and James pulls his hand away.

“You woke up.”

“Uh. Yep. What's the smell?”

“Sorry about that. I've been trying to bring you back since you went out a minute ago. J’onn said we're in a critical window here and I had to wake you up and we have to go back in to get Lillian. Can you walk?”

Winn blinks. That was too many words for him to process.

“Listen, Winn, I'm sorry," James misinterprets his silence. "I was reckless to bring you in without backup. Lillian almost captured you and used your guts or something to conquer the world.” 

“Aw, it's okay, James. We both made that choice.”

Winn stands up and James puts his hand on his waist for support. Winn can probably walk without it, but it sure won't hurt. They step out of the van and James runs with him to where the Luthors had been. They appear to have cleared out. Winn pulls up the blueprints and points out the route they'd most likely go.

James checks the crevices and potential hiding places, slowing down for Winn to keep up with his long strides.

“And J’onn and M’gann are coming over to watch the outside of the building,” he tells Winn after checking his phone. 

Winn points on the blueprint to a performance room that looks large enough to hide in with some technology. It would be appealing to Lillian for its direct hallway to the emergency exit. James nods.

James blasts the door down with something on his suit and steps inside in front of Winn. He gives the ‘all clear’ sign and Winn enters behind him. They scan the cupboards and mirrors. Winn points out the open emergency exit door. James walks to it and pushes it. A trap springs and a bolt of electricity shoots where James had stood before he'd jumped away.

“Well, they definitely went this way and made a trap. Stay behind me, there could be more.”

They jog along the hallway. Winn spots the next trip wire and they step over it without activating it.

“Henshaw, do you read? Targets are heading your way. Guardian over,” James says into his phone.

“Who’s Henshaw?” Winn asks.

“J’onn’s codename. See any more traps?”

“Uh, I'm guessing based on the blueprint that there's a laser around this corner.”

Sure enough, James and Winn duck under a laser and find themselves next to the door to the outside.

“Henshaw, we’re clear all the way to the exit we found. Are you sure they haven't come out?”

James and Winn push the door open together as J’onn’s voice rattles over saying they must still be inside.

Winn crosses the threshold and waves to J’onn and M’gann.

“They must have set the traps up beforehand to make it look like they went this way. They're still in here somewhere.”

“Okay,” J’onn says. “The police are coming down to search the entire building. Guardian, if you would inform the police to watch for traps and then bring Winn back to your apartment."

James nods and Winn becomes aware of his head splitting. The alien hyperdrenaline has kept him moving while he'd been hunting Lillian, but it's wearing off fast. He can feel burning where the liquid had spilled on his back and his eyes swelling.

James helps Winn back to the museum entrance and meets Detective Sawyer and her people. Alex is next to her with her face covered to avoid recognition and a gun in her hand. James speaks to Maggie briefly and explains what they'd seen. She pulls up a device from the ground. Its elegance looks like Lena made it, but Maggie can't immediately tell what it's for.

“It's a projecting device,” Winn realizes as she hands it to him. “It's how they got away, by making it project the ground blank. The battery doesn't look like it could hold more than an hour of the high-energy projection, and I can smell that it's only ten percent through. We missed them by six minutes.”

Alex angrily says something in English Winn doesn't recognize. Maggie looks on with a frown. James runs his free hand over his head.

Winn can feel his back burning. James lifts him into the van and yells for M’gann. She flips him onto his front and James pulls his shirt off to look at his blisters. 

Winn hears James gasp and M’gann say something to him calmly. He's aware of hands pressing around where he's hurt and feels ice on the injury.

“You're having an allergic reaction, Winn,” M’gann tells him. “It's blistering and the dizziness is another effect. You're going to be fine once you cool off.”

She leaves James with a reminder to keep him awake for a few hours and Winn with the device still in his hand.

James and Winn get home, but Winn doesn't remember anything of the drive except one of James’s hands on his back. They sit at the TV and James pulls more ice out of the freezer. Winn covers his chest with a towel.

Someone knocks on the door and Winn groans as James answers it. Kara is next to him with her face by his.

“Winn! Did you actually face down a supervillain?”

“Yes, he did,” James says, catching up. “He knew exactly where they'd go and he found Lillian Luthor.”

“Did you find Lena?”

“We saw her,” James answers so Winn doesn't have to. “She's not doing so well.”

“I think she saved us,” Winn says. “Everything Lillian was doing worked perfectly. She must have sabotaged it.”

“I believe in her. I hope she'll be okay."

“We know, Kara. After seeing her, I don't think she's in it out of free will,” James agrees. “We’re going to find her.”

Winn picks up the projection device that he'd grabbed and pokes at it.

“Something's weird about this. It's heavier than it should be.”

He disassembles it and takes out the computing part of it. Another compartment opens and Winn finds a concealed drive. 

He rushes to plug them into the computer and merges them. He runs it through a filter like he had with the other coded message and reads it.

“L-Sat dff95672. Does that mean anything?”

“If Lena took the time to encode it, it has to be significant,” James points out.

“Sat. Uh, I don't know English words with Sat,” Kara says.

“Sat...urday?” James suggests. “Sat like sit? Satellite?”

“Satellite would make sense. And the L. L-Corp? Do they have satellites?” Winn speculates.

“The people at L-Corp would know. Kara, could you take Lucy or someone with you and ask?”

“You should do it. You've worked with L-Corp longer than we have,” Kara says.

James isn't convinced. “Winn….”

“I'll be okay with Kara,” Winn promises, and James nods before he walks off.

“You know, it's not a thing all humans do,” Kara says to Winn, dropping back into the standard extraterrestrial language.

“What is?” 

“How he acts around you. That's not how Alex or Lucy talks to us. He's different with you than me.”

“I don't know,” Winn says. “Humans are weird.”

"Hmm," Kara says, unconvinced. "Let's watch a human romance movie to show you."

Winn laughs as James gets back partway through Titanic. 

"You were right. L-Corp satellite dff95672 has some kind of tracking code. It's only active at certain times, so we can rest until then."

Winn watches James closely as he wipes away a tear for Jack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while since I've seen Titanic, so I'm not sure about it. And thanks for waiting for this chapter, I just didn't get it written. I really appreciate the comments.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've gotten tired of writing plot for a while, so here's some fun stuff I've been waiting to write. It's a short chapter but I hope you enjoy!!

Winn argues with Kara after the movie.

“No, Winn, there can't be any other pronunciation of ‘alien’. That's not how English works.

“Ah-lee-in,” Winn argues.

“That's not a pronunciation of it. That's just made up.”

“Well, of course you're going to say there aren't any other pronunciations if you only consider them pronunciations based on your opinion!”

"That's no more my opinion than your opinion is that ah-liens is a valid pronunciation!"

"Ah, yet another argument where you clearly don't know what you're talking about."

"Speaking of, have you tried those human energy drinks?"

"No, should I?"

"I want them with Nnteranet vodka and coffee from the Vaneronese galaxy."

"Kara, no!"

"Then I'll be able to astral project and deck the robots who made us crash here in the metal faces."

Winn sighs at the mention of the robots. He's been too concerned with this new planet and its people to even think about their own situation. He wonders if the war is over and they haven't been found or it's just starting.

James interrupts Winn's thoughts. “I just got a call about an explosion, but I don't know how much I can do. Apparently the building caved in, and I don't think I can laser them out this time. I can't lift the floor open."

“You look tired,” Kara says. “I have superpowers, I can deal with it.”

James does look exhausted as he collapses on the couch next to Winn, too tired to protest Kara leaving. She's right- he's been working constantly. Winn hopes the news doesn't show anything about her in case the robots found them. 

"I wish I could do more," James says. "I've always been able to protect the city by myself before. But now Lexforce...."

"You don't have to face them alone," Winn whispers. He isn't talking about Kara anymore.

James is suddenly very awake when Winn slides closer to him and leans his head on James’s shoulder.

James turns his body to face Winn, who grumbles at the movement but opens his eyes.

They're staring at each other until Winn looks away. 

“Is this how all humans act around all their friends?"

Winn trails off as James shakes his head.

“No,” James tells him, eyes on Winn's lips. “This isn't a friend thing.”

Winn looks into his eyes as James leans forward, giving Winn every chance to back down or say no. 

Winn doesn't move away. He sets his hand on James’s muscular shoulder and tilts his own head up. He wraps his other hand around the back of James's head and pulls himself up to make contact.

James kisses him back, letting his hand clutch Winn's waist. Winn doesn't even complain as his finger brushes the blister on Winn's back, just breathes into James's cheek.

Winn feels James move back and opens his eyes. He shuts them again when James switches sides and puts his free hand in Winn's hair to get a better angle at his mouth. Winn moves his lips against James's.

His hand still rests on James's shoulder and he switches sides again, feeling James's breath on his face. He leans up, far enough to kiss James's nose. 

They both pull back at once. Winn smiles goofily. James looks at him and blushes pink and happy as Winn rests his head on James's shoulder again. He holds his lips to Winn's forehead until they fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here we go. Kara is introduced to the world as a superhero now, so expect some badass team-ups in the future. And my boys finally smooched. I know this chapter was short, but I had trouble writing the kiss. I hope I did okay for a baby lesbian.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience while I was at band camp throwing up and not having wifi last week. It's been a while since I updated, but I hope it's worth the wait. Also, despite the ... incident at Comic Con last weekend, I plan to keep writing this ship. And I'm going to give more time to Supercorp than I planned, so expect them to rise within the next few chapters. Points to anyone who catches the Barrisco quote!

Winn wakes up in James's spare room. He remembers that he'd fallen asleep on the couch and groans in disappointment that he's always asleep when James carries him, but there's food on the table for him and he can hear James in the shower. He can't complain.

James kisses his cheek when he gets out of the shower with a towel around his hips. Winn blushes and watches him read the newspaper and check his phone.

"Alex says Lexforce is laying low. Good news for the moment even though they're planning something. It means we," James gestures to Winn and himself, "get to spend a little less time running around chasing them."

Winn smiles up at him as his phone rings. 

James swears as he answers it. 

"Okay, fine, I'll be there," he groans. This is the least polite and most exasperated Winn has ever seen him. 

He's all smiles again when he turns back to Winn and kisses his cheek again. 

"Sorry, gotta deal with a robbery. I'll be right back," he says.

He hasn't even been gone for a minute when Kara opens the door, scaring him. At least she hadn't flown in through the window.

"Winnnnnn," she says, dragging out his name. 

"Good morning, Kara," he says casually, back in their language.

She squints at him. "You know I can hear your heartbeat, right?" 

"Oh yeah...."

"So what is it? Why's it going so fast? Are you okay?" 

"Yes. I'm, uh, fantastic actually. Uh, there's just some stuff. And I've been excited about, um, catching Lillian. That's it. That's the only reason I'm behaving differently. There's nothing else. At all."

Kara looks at him pitifully. "You know, I can see the other side of walls, but I don't need supervision to see right through all that bullshit," she says, back in English for the last word.

"Bullshit?" Winn asks curiously.

"I don't know. Alex keeps saying it but she won't tell me what it means."

Winn shrugs. 

"Anyway," Kara continues. "What's up with James?"

"Uh, he's just dealing with a robbery."

"Yeah, I know, I may or may not have been involved in the robbery. That wasn't what I meant, though. You two kissed?"

"Um," Winn says. He stalls. "You were in a robbery?"

"I didn't actually steal anything! Stop avoiding the question!"

James opens the door again.

"Hey, babe, turns out the robbery was a fake," James says, before turning around.

"Oh, hey, Kara. I, uh, didn't expect you here," he says. She's gawking. 

"Congrats!" she tells them and runs out the door. 

James shakes his head as the intruder disappears. "So where were we?"

"In your apartment."

"I'd feel comfortable calling it... our apartment." 

Winn smiles. He's been staying there for a few Earth months now, and he's glad he can call it home. James owns it, but the DEO pays for it, and it's as much of a home as the spaceship had been. 

 

Winn makes Kara promise to deal with petty thefts and minor emergencies for a while and she smirks. She's doing her best to conceal her powers with a suit like Guardian has so it can pass as technology rather than alien abilities to the media. 

James takes Winn to a mini-golf course and teaches him how to play. A little human girl runs up while they're trying to putt and picks up the orange golf ball and starts running. Her mother tries to tell her to put it back down and smiles apologetically at them. James laughs and shows the toddler how to hit the ball. Winn's heart expands. 

They get fancy human pop drinks afterwards and peanut butter ice cream. In the meantime, Kara changes up her suit so it's less bulky and armored than Guardian's and more colorful.

James takes him to the DEO for just a few minutes to see if it's safe again. He feels okay in the building, and is glad to see Lucy. She seems happy to see him too, and smirks at him and James. He barely sees Alex as she drives past in the side of a police car with the detective looking for Lillian. She's laughing and not paying much attention to the investigation. 

M'gann visits James's apartment to check on them and Winn grins as he reports that it's been almost a week since the last time he fell down. She smiles and tells him that her husband will be so proud.

Lyra tries to talk to him the next time they visit the DEO. James stands next to Winn and makes polite small talk as she tries to put her arm around him and he slides away. He leans up and kisses James in front of her and they walk away, ignoring the sound of shattering glass as Lyra breaks something. 

Winn watches the latest Cat Grant interview about Supergirl, the name she made up for Kara's superhero persona. 

"Yes, obviously I still trust Guardian and feel safe knowing he's out there, but Supergirl is a role model for our daughters and must take some of the stress off of Guardian."

The interviewer continues theorizing about if Supergirl's powers are technology-based. Cat Grant says they must be. 

Winn is relieved. He cuddles closer to James on their couch.

James reluctantly picks up his phone the second time it rings. He's gotten a lot more peace since Kara started covering him, but he still gets the occasional garbage call.

He listens, then sets it down. 

"Remember the code in Lena's hologram thing for the satellite? Apparently it's picked up something."

Winn sits up, interested in something other than James for the first time in a while.

James takes him to L-Corp and Winn sits with the workers there. He accesses the satellite code through a series of complicated rerouting. It's active, as James had said. 

Winn saves all the data from it for later and checks the location it's marked as receiving information from.

It's halfway across the world. Winn sighs. He's crossed the stars and now a tiny surface journey is worrying to him.

He looks at the location again. It's the middle of nowhere in Russia. 

Winn sighs and looks at the raw code in case there's something hidden in it. 

Sure enough, he finds some text embedded in the coding.

"Call long 5 late 4," he reads aloud.

"Does this mean something to you?" he asks James. "Is it some English thing I'm not getting?"

"It could be longitude and latitude, location markers."

"So 5 digits of the longitude of the place and 4 from the latitude. Which ones?"

James shrugs and Winn looks for something to give him a clue. He finds errors in the code that he'd missed before.

"Okay, there's a pattern of eight numbers repeated nine times. Each is a little different, but I can figure out the nine-digit code and then figure out where each one is missing."

He figures out the order of the missing numbers and plugs them in with the latitude and longitude digits. 

"We have a number to call," he hollers to James and sits back at the DEO. 

"Okay, we'll call it back and if anyone answers, we'll have Lucy come over. If it's a fluke, we don't need to tell her."

He plugs the number in a disposable phone Lucy had let him take without knowing why and he presses dial.

"Hello?" Lena's voice comes up on the other end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyra makes us all uncomfortable. And wow, I love writing the code-breaking stuff. Lots of it is based on other stuff I've seen, so I hope it's reasonably accurate. The girl interrupting the mini-golf was something that happened to me a while ago. Except I wasn't on a date with a cute alien.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience these last few days.

"Hold, please," James says with his Guardian voice-changer on. 

James runs to find Lucy or J'onn or someone and Winn hangs on the line. 

"I know you're there. And, Winn, I've always been on your side," Lena whispers through the mic.

It takes Winn a second that she's changed into his native alien tongue when she continues, although her accent is awful. 

"Supergirl is the answer to everything."

Lucy appears and takes the phone from Winn as he wonders what Lena had meant.

"What does Lillian want?" she asks Lena.

"The senior Ms. Luthor and I request a meeting at a public location of our choosing."

"Why should we accept?" Lucy asks. Winn knows she is going to say yes, but is fishing for information.

"This is your chance to destroy Lexforce and our opportunity to destroy you," Lena says evenly. She's very calm for delivering a death threat. "It can end."

"We'll take it," Lucy says. "Note that I'll be wearing blue boots. The pair is reflective so you'll be able to spot me before we kick your ass. I know my felony study is going to help me a lot when we catch you. It's almost 7 in the evening now, so we'll be there tomorrow at that hour."

Winn doesn't get what she's going on about. Lucy doesn't tend to be one to blabber or trash-talk. 

"The Eiffel Tower in Paris," Lillian's voice comes through.

"What?" Lucy says, feigning shock. "That's across the world."

"So you won't have time to set anything up."

"And neither will you," Lucy hesitates to avoid sounding eager. "Okay, Luthor, we'll see you both there."

She hangs up and Winn is confused.

"What were you talking about, with the shoes and felony stuff?" he asks.

"Pair is... my felony... that hour," Lucy repeats some of her phrases. 

"Paris, the Eiffel Tower?" James wonders.

"Yes. There's a D.E.O. branch in France who can help us. And we noticed when we used L-Corp's tech that it malfunctioned around large amounts of wrought iron due to the magnetism. We have other tech now thanks to Winn, but hopefully Lena hasn't changed what she's using. I thought it'd be the best place to meet.

"And wouldn't it be good shit cool beans if we had a shootout on the top floor and pushed Lillian off?" Winn adds.

James and Lucy ignore the peculiar language choices and the idea to have a shootout in a public place. 

"But how did you make them pick it?" James frowns as he tries to understand.

"The Luthors honeymooned in Paris, and they're a swanky rich family. Paris is probably always at the back of their thoughts. So I just had to say something that sounded vaguely like the Eiffel Tower for them to think they came up with it themselves."

Winn is impressed as he wishes he was as quick of a thinker as Lucy. 

"Uh, Lena said some weird stuff in my language about her always being on my side and Supergirl being the key to everything," Winn says. 

"I'll assume that's more Luthor manipulation tactics. We'll look into it more if it becomes necessary. In the meantime, pack whatever of James's hoodies you want to steal for the trip. We can get other stuff when we arrive if we need any. The plane's going to be off within the hour."

Lucy almost misses the plane herself. Kara was second-last to sit down. She'd almost refused to come on the grounds that she wouldn't work with them to hurt Lena until Winn and Alex had convinced her that Lena would be unharmed. Lucy sits down swearing about Lyra a minute before takeoff.

"Alright, we have Agents Schott, J'onzz, M'orzz, and Zor-El, and me and Guardian. Danvers is staying here so someone responsible is in charge. I think that's everyone. I got the guns and Winn's equipment loaded on. We're ready to leave."

Kara is squirrelly in her seat, wishing she could be flying with her powers instead. Winn can tell she wants to find Lena, as long as what she finds is good. 

Winn tries to think through everything Lena has done, puzzling over her morality, but can't concentrate for more than a few minutes. 

J'onn and M'gann are frantically researching everything they can about the Eiffel Tower and helping Lucy plan. James is next to Winn and occasionally offers him a smile. 

About an hour into the flight, Alex calls James. He picks it up and puts it on the big screen of the plane.

"This is Agent Danvers reporting an incident. Lexforce went after L-Corp. Everyone we found was okay, but there are four people missing. All of them are direct assistants to Lena. The building took huge damage and we can't tell what was taken."

"Do you want us to turn back?" James asks. He knows Lucy wouldn't allow it, but he needs to know how bad it is. 

"No. You couldn't do anything to help. All we can do here is hold down the fort. You have to take them down in Paris."

Detective Sawyer's head appears in the frame. 

"Alex, NCPD needs some confirmation that someone is after Lexforce or they'll get involved. They promised to delay the investigation for twenty-four hours, but that's all we have before we either have to step down or expose the DEO."

"Twenty-four hours is all we need," Lucy says. "Thank you, Detective Sawyer."

Alex says goodbye and hangs up. The screen goes blank and Winn stares at it. He'd known that they'd be going face to face with Lillian twenty-four hours from when the call was made, but the missing people made it much more real. And they'll only have two hours after meeting Lillian to sent NCPD proof that the missing people are okay. Winn frowns, knowing he's worried about something they might not make it far enough to see.

"Alright, everybody!" Lucy says, just loud enough to cut through the quiet. "Tomorrow's going to be a long day, so I'd sleep while you can!"

Winn shuts his eyes knowing that this nap might be the last one he takes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter starts the end of the Lexforce arc. This whole plotline did end up a lot more spy-like than I originally planned, but my planning leaves lots of room for improvement (this was planned to be a oneshot lmao). Next chapter, shit's probably going to start going down. Assuming I've planned it well enough. And I hope you all are ready for Kara/Lena makeout!
> 
> Also, the sequence when they arrange a meeting and Lucy makes Lillian pick Paris is borrowed from an Artemis Fowl book (I think the fifth). I'd forgotten how cool that series is and how much I love the writing in it. And I actually researched (Googled) the Eiffel Tower so feel free to appreciate me. Contrary to what both Lillian and Lucy believe, I, the writer, was actually the one who picked the Eiffel Tower. I just thought it'd be cool.
> 
> As always, feel free to comment, even if it's just one word or emoticon. Even if it's 2040 and you just discovered the internet, I still won't refuse a comment.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have much to say on this long chapter except... just don't read too much into the science of it. I know nothing about iron or technology and I've never been to Paris, but I don't think my science is any worse than canon's.

Winn yells as the plane starts dropping. 

"Winn, stop screaming. It's under control," J'onn orders him.

"I'm scared of heights!" Winn defends himself, looking out the window.

"Don't look out the window then! You're a space explorer, this is nothing!" Lucy says. 

Winn keeps screaming as the ground gets closer and closer and he's faced with memories of the dropship plummet. James holds his hand as Winn's ears pop.

He winces as he comes to an unpleasant realization that planes aren't made for his alien bone structure and skull. The pressure is more than a human would feel. His head pounds as they land. 

James helps him out of the plane and Winn holds on to his arm. Lucy puts on sunglasses as she has someone carry the equipment Winn said that they had to bring. Kara picks up her own suitcase. Winn knows she could probably carry the whole plane if she was so inclined. M'gann keeps asking J'onn if her human disguise is okay. J'onn nods encouragingly to his wife and tells her she looks beautiful.

They set up at the Paris DEO facility. The branch there has sort of been informed about the situation, but Lucy explains the rest in fluent French.

They have about twelve hours left before the assigned meeting time. Twelve hours to get everything ready, prepare any tricks, anticipate any attacks from Lillian, and get to the Eiffel Tower. 

Kara is anxious and ready to go. She checks the American news for stuff about the missing people of L-Corp and calls Alex for an update. Alex barely has time to say that they haven't found any signs of struggle where the employees were last seen before Detective Sawyer is back asking her for some reports. 

Winn researches the missing employees some more. He remembers talking to a few of them. They were nice and helped him crack codes and track Lena. Winn pushes away the thought that they'd been manipulating him the whole time, working for Lillian and reporting to her that he was falling for it.

He pulls up their data files and checks more about them, wondering what was special about those four people. What did they have in common, other than working for Lena and possibly being loyal to Lillian?

Winn checks their work database and his already-below human temperature blood runs cold.

"They were all working on immunizing Lena's tech to iron," he says aloud to all zero people who are listening.

Winn looks at the Earth elemental system and finds our everything he can about iron. He's not familiar with that type of material, but he works to figure out how it messes with Lena's tech, what she'd do to fix it, and how he could stop her from fixing it.

He checks the L-Corp file and a sample communication device he'd taken from the projector and made Lucy bring in case it was useful. He puts it next to a piece of iron he has picked up from a junkyard. It slows the device down only slightly. 

Winn calculates the amount of iron it'd take for that piece of tech to be taken down completely just by proximity. It's too much more than the Eiffel Tower can do even for just a small device and that isn't even factoring in advances Lena has made or precautions to prevent her stuff from malfunctioning.

Winn sighs and messes with the device, trying to find some way to error it out. 

He strikes it hard with the iron bar in frustration seven hours before the meeting time. A message pops up on the hologram.

"Enter the password to disable this device. If password fails three times, this device's owner will be notified," it reads. 

That wasn't there before. Winn tries to think of what the password would be, aware that he only has three chances.

"Lucy," he calls. 

"What? It had better be important and quick, I only have two minutes before I meet with the director here and start getting everything set up."

"Proximity to the tower itself isn't going to be able to take down any of Lillian's tech itself. But I got this error message when I hit this device with an iron bar."

"Okay. Are you thinking that it could work on all the L-Corp devices?"

"Possibly," Winn says. "But I don't know the password."

"We'll figure something out," Lucy says, patting his shoulder. "Keep testing it."

Winn hits it with the bar again and the message goes away. It comes back when he strikes it again. He tries using his fist to hit it, but the message doesn't show up. A plastic stick yields almost the same result, with just a little less pain on Winn's end.

He tries hitting it with a smaller iron bar. He quickly figures out that the bar has to be a certain size to work, and that the device can still do its intended function even with the message showing up. James sees him hitting the tech with different materials and sits next to him.

"Bad day?" James asks. 

"Good, actually, that this tech malfunctions when I hit it with a certain iron bar. Well, it doesn't malfunction, per se, but it asks for a password to shut it off."

"Cool," James says, smiling evenly at Winn despite the stress. "Is there anything you need to work with?"

"Yeah. I need a larger and more recent piece of L-Corp equipment. They must have something set up at the tower. I know there's, oh, what's the English word, uh, tourists there right now so we can't exactly waltz in and..."

"No, I suppose we can't. What if we got Kara to maybe locate one with her vision and then laser it down?"

"You," Winn says, kissing his cheek, "are the best."

Kara agrees within a minute of them explaining the plan. James tells her not to bring anything back to the Paris DEO in case Lillian can track it, and she's off. They arrange to meet Kara at a closed mall.

Kara sets something Lillian must have had put up from the tower down. It's about the size of Winn's old sleeping pod. Winn checks for any cameras on it, and knows that it's definitely Lena's work just from the make. He doesn't have time for a full scan of the whole thing that'll eliminate any chance of them being tracked from it like he'd done to make the smaller projector safe, but he can at least make sure Lillian doesn't have an easy way to watch him.

He pulls out several cameras and a microphone and strikes them with iron to see what happens. They don't malfunction at all, so Winn has James and Kara destroy them. James blasts them with a laser like the one on his suit and watches jealously as Kara crushes some with just her palms.

Winn approaches the main body of the thing and starts testing it. He takes out a container of gas he'd guess is rigged to hunt aliens and turns the detonation device off before carefully setting it down.

"So much for not having time for tricks," Winn mutters. 

He starts attacking the large device with an iron bar. The small one doesn't do anything, and it takes one so large he and James have to wield it together with both hands each to make the message show up on a screen concealed behind the plastic.

"Okay. Each device has a way to take it down. You have to use a hunk of iron that's the same or more weight than the device. Then, it'll show an option to enter a passcode to disable it," Winn explains to Kara. And it says if the password's wrong, it'll send Lillian a message. We can't afford to risk her finding out that we're working on this," Winn narrates.

They report back to the Paris DEO and tell Lucy what they found. Her forehead scrunches with worry when she hears about the gas. 

"You're right," she says eventually. "We can't risk her knowing that we're close to taking her tech out. We have to wait until it's too late for her to respond to any alerts she gets from it."

Winn runs tests on the gas too.

"I'd thought it was just straight anti-alien DNA-seeking gas, but something's different here. There's another substance spread out in it. It's like some kind of reactant. It's pretty unstable. I think the reactant would respond to an instruction from the Luthors and do something different than just whatever the regular gas does. And we don't know what the device was for. It had cameras and the gas, so maybe it needs to be connected to the device to work," he explains to Lucy.

"You mean, it might be a DNA-seeking poison gas that Lena could make turn into an explosive or something."

"I don't know for sure what the reactant will make it do. I can't tell without activating it and possibly screwing something up or alerting Lillian to the fact that we're testing it."

"So her plan seems to be meet us, then activate the gas and eliminate anyone with alien DNA, then use the reactant for something evil."

"That's the best guess I have."

"Huh. Okay, so if we don't find out anything else or think of another plan in the next four and a half hours before we meet you just find whatever they're using, have Kara hit it with the biggest piece of iron you can find, and start making up passwords to try. In the meantime, make sure you rest and eat and pee or whatever you aliens have to do to make sure you're ready for this to go down."

Winn nods and falls asleep with the hat Lucy had sworn would help him fit in resting on his face.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some... unreliable physics, technology, a Cisco quote, and facts I just made up about the Eiffel Tower. Thanks for reading!

Winn wakes up to James touching his shoulder.

"Hey, I'm glad you're up. We have to go in a few minutes. It's almost midnight."

"Isn't that twelve? I thought we were meeting at seven."

"It was seven in the other time zone," James explains. 

"What?" Winn demands. "It's not the same?"

James smiles. "And the Eiffel Tower is closed at night, so no civilians are going to get hurt in the shootout. It's just gonna be us and the Luthors."

"Oh, cool."

Lucy walks up with several guns and bright blue boots as she had promised. "You ready, lads?"

"What's that?" Winn asks. James smiles. 

"Okay, Winn, we've got the biggest iron bar we could find to whack whatever they're using. And I hope we can just guess shit until we get the password right. Is there any other equipment you need?"

Winn shakes his head, picking up his travel-size tech kit he'd packed. It's mostly an overrated screwdriver and some radios. James puts his Guardian helmet on and picks up his shield.

Kara is wearing a bulletproof suit, not that she needs it, and taking one last call from Alex. J'onn is in his true form, with green skin and a sick-ass cape. M'gann is standing beside him.

"You ready to head up?" Lucy asks. They all agree, Kara hanging up on Alex. 

"And, team, whatever happens, we're making history. We're heroes. I know, for some of you, it's not your world here. But I want to say thank you for working alongside us. It's been an honor."

Kara looks somber as she salutes. Lucy doesn't mention that she used the wrong hand.

Winn wasn't expecting an actual speech like something in one of the Earth movies he'd watched with James. He just nods.

Lucy walks them to a helicopter. Winn realizes how tall the Eiffel Tower is when they get inside and start flying towards it. He holds on to James and doesn't look down.

"Are you sure I can't get off at the bottom?" Winn whines.

"Sure, if you want to walk up 600-some stairs," Lucy says. Winn's mouth shuts.

The helicopter touches down on the top level and James helps Winn off. Lucy hops down elegantly, and the others fly.

"Alright, everything we say could be under surveillance, so don't say anything about the-" Winn starts.

Lucy shuts him up with a prod. J'onn shakes his head fondly. 

Winn enlists James to start setting up his own surveillance around. 

"They will have wanted to get any tech in before we arrive, but as late as possible so it's less likely to be found," M'gann theorizes. She's right, of course. "I'm going to scan for it," she says, and shuts her eyes. She must be doing some kind of mind-scanning. Winn is always amazed by that trick.

"I found their machine. But it's stuck in the foundation of the tower. Winn, should I fly you down to check it out?"

Winn nods, grabbing a radio and letting M'gann lift him. They touch down by the base of the tower and start climbing through the infrastructure. M'gann goes first, following the path she'd gotten from her search. She stops and Winn almost bumps into her. They look at the huge contraption. 

M'gann speaks into the radio. "We've found the thing."

She hands Winn the radio and he adds, "But it's huge and I don't know what the hell it does."

J'onn tells him to figure it out. Winn pokes it. It doesn't respond. He stares at it. He pulls one of the lids open with a screwdriver and looks inside. 

"Uh, I think it's one of the DNA gas releasers. Except it's huge. Massive scale, enough to hunt down the whole DEO. And they put it all the way down here, where it must be able to reach the top floor."

"So?" Lucy says over the phone.

"Um, it's bad."

"Can you disable it?"

Winn tries using the tiny iron bar. It doesn't work. He hadn't expected it to. To take out a device of this magnitude, he'd need a iron bar more than he, James, and all his human friends could lift together. 

"We need more iron!" 

"We're sitting in a pile of iron chunks," Kara says over the radio.

"Yeah, but I can't lift the whole Eiffel Tower and beat up a massive gadget with it!" Winn says. 

"Uh, Winn? You left your laptop up here and there's a big red flashing notification that a camera 3N detected something. What does that mean?"

"Lillian's arrived. Either that, or a very lost tourist ended up on the third floor at one in the morning local time."

"Okay, we'll be-" James's voice cuts off suddenly on the other end of the radio.

"Lillian," Lucy says coldly. 

"DEO representatives," Lillian says. Winn can't hear her as well since she's away from the radio mic but is still impressed at how mean she sounds. She doesn't even know her rivals' names!

Kara touches down next to Winn and he jumps.

"Hey, Lucy told me to fly down and help you as soon as the Luthors showed up."

Winn figures out what Lucy wants them to do and grimaces. 

"Okay, M'gann, we need you to fly up there and keep everyone safe. The tower's going to be moving."

M'gann nods and takes off. Winn turns to Kara.

"Okay, Supergirl, Lucy wants you to hit the device and the tower. We can't move the device out, so you're going to have to slam the tower down on it. It's huge, so you shouldn't have to lift it more than a few feet." He'd calculated the exact math earlier, but it didn't matter now.

Kara lifts Winn by the armpits and flies him out so he doesn't get crushed. She sets him down on the ground and starts using her lasers to separate the tower from the foundation. She scans the perimeter and confirms that it's ready. She slides under it and lifts it up a meter or so. Winn doesn't know what a meter is, since feet are confusing enough, but it doesn't matter as Kara slams the structure down. It wobbles, and some of the beans shatter, but it stays up.

Kara pulls Winn back inside the mangled foundation and sets him down by the machine. Lillian's voice is still coming through the radio, which is somehow still working.

"Supergirl's little earthquakes aren't going to scare me."

Winn checks the device and sees that it does show the message asking for the password. He doesn't have much to lose, so he tries typing 'Lexforce'. It flashes red.

Lillian pauses. "Lena, how's our machine? Is it safe?"

Lena's voice comes through, soft but clear. "It's password protected. They'll never guess the answer."

"The answer," Winn repeats to Kara, wondering if Lena was innocent like Kara thought and was dropping a hint. "Okay, what if I try typing 'the answer'. 'Answer', that's 'A-N-S-"

"Nobody would have that as a password. Is there anything else Lena could have said to you?" Kara asks.

"Supergirl," Winn answers.

"Yeah? Winn, I'm listening and you know my name's Kara."

"A while ago Lena said that Supergirl was the answer to everything!" Winn explains, typing.

"Password rejected. Uh," he reads.

"I'm going to take the DEO out now," Lillian's voice echoes.

"Do something!" Kara whispers, and Winn thinks of James and his friends.

"She said it in my language. We thought it was a manipulation tactic, but..." Winn looks at the virtual keyboard on the device's screen. Sure enough, there's a setting for Versian letters on the keyboard. He types out Kara's codename and hits the enter key.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, everyone, this is part of the conclusion to the Lexforce plot. I'm not sure what I'll write after. I might continue this fic ooooooor I might consider writing a sequel that deals with the alien and robot wars. If anyone wants to comment to improve the 496:6 hits to comment ratio with what you think, I would appreciate it very much.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the end notes for my emotional rambling

The device displays a glowing message. "Password correct. Shutdown commencing."

Winn yells and hugs Kara. She's grinning too. 

"I knew Lena was with us! I knew it!" she yells. She grabs Winn by the armpits and swings him in a circle until he looks vaguely green. She flies up with him to the top floor. The confrontation is still in progress. Lillian is looking shocked and turns to her daughter.

"What does this mean, it's been disabled?" 

"I don't know," Lena says, probably lying. 

"Well, we still have the other gas gun planted here and in National City. And this time, I'm not waiting for them to think of a way to get out of it."

Lena hands Lillian a control device to something and Lucy shoots at her. The bullet misses and hits something on the tower.

"Ah, I wouldn't. If it falls, it activates the sequence faster," Lillian threatens.

Lucy puts her gun down, scowling.

Lillian threatens them. "Now, you won't be able to escape, no matter how far you fly. This time, there won't be a countdown. It's activating right now."

Winn feels the tower start shaking and something sprays into the air.

"No!" James yells, running to Winn and holding him in his arms. "No!" 

Winn hides his face in James's Guardian chest plate. Maybe if he doesn't breathe in...

Kara speaks up, making one last plea to Lena, knowing that it's too late to change what's happening but begging anyway. "I've always believed in you."

"It's not going to work, Mom," Lena says quietly. A solid formation starts forming in the air and snowing down around them. "I resequenced the gas here and in National City. And I called the police about the people you kidnapped."

Winn breathes in, taking the solid into his lungs. It doesn't burn like it had before, just tastes vaguely minty.

Lillian lashes out, striking Lena. Lena falls to the floor with a cry. If she'd been standing somewhere different, she could have fallen the few hundred meters to the ground, whatever meters are. Kara swoops down with her eyes blazing.

"I really wouldn't," she spits at Lillian. "I really wouldn't."

Lillian backs up, eyeing Kara's Supergirl suit. She turns to run in her helicopter. Lucy yells at her to stop. Lillian puts one foot onto the step. James heaves his shield over his head. Kara lifts higher into the air to prepare to give chase. Winn's breathing speeds up. The helicopter blades start moving and making an awful noise. Winn puts his hands over his ears. J'onn takes off too in pursuit, leaving M'gann to keep everyone safe on the tower. 

Lena is still on the ground from Lillian's shove, but she reaches behind her dress. She struggles for a second with something, then pulls out a gun. She aims it and fires. Winn sees every movement as it flies. The gunshot noise is muffled from the chopper and his hands, but he still jumps. Lucy pauses her orders. James's shield sinks a few inches as he moves it to see.

The bullet strikes Lillian's back. Winn knows enough about human biology to be aware that the shot alone wouldn't kill her if it was treated, but Lillian misses the next helicopter step. She tries to get a grip on anything that could hold her, but all that she touches are handfuls of the ash she released. She falls. 

Lena shuts her eyes and breathes. She'd just killed her mother. Kara stands next to her, an identical look of shock on her face. 

"She's gone," Lena gasps. "We won."

"Thanks to you," Kara says. "We couldn't have done it without you, Lena."

"I couldn't have done what I did without you, Supergirl," Lena tells her, biting her lip in a faint smile. "You're my hero. The whole time she made me go along with her, I was thinking about you. What you'd do, or how I could help you, or-"

Lena pauses and chews her lip again. "-what I wouldn't wait to do with you if we won. I didn't know if I'd ever see you again, and now that I have..."

Kara makes eye contact with her and leans in, letting her hand touch Lena's hair and her mouth touch Lena's lips. Lena kisses her back, arm dropping to Kara's back and guiding her closer.

It's dark, but Winn can see their faces illuminated as they smile together. The tower is lit up from somewhere around them and their silhouettes stand out against the darker sky. Light chunks of the reactant continue to rain down on them, shining like a snow flurry. Winn looks up at the universe, but any light of the stars is drowned out by the glow of the city. He can hear the distant pulse of cars, sirens, and bittersweet music playing somewhere far away as Kara and Lena's shapes sway against the night at the top of the tower.

James smiles and puts his arm around Winn, letting him lean into his torso. James smiles, and Winn thinks it's the most beautiful thing he's seen in any galaxy. 

Lucy flips out her phone and calls for Alex. 

"Hey, heard anything about the missing people?" she asks. Winn remembers the police threat that the DEO had to find the L-Corp employees or they'd have to surrender the operation.

"Uh, yeah, actually," Alex says. "Just got a police call from Paris about them. They're all safe, and they say that Lena Luthor saved them."

"She did," Lucy says proudly. "Your sister was right. Lena helped us too. She was actually the one who shot Lillian off the tower and deactivated the gas guns, even the one in National City that we didn't know about."

Winn can sense Alex's reluctance to admit to her own fault and trust Lena, but she shuts up. 

"So Lillian's dead, the police got the L-Corp workers, everyone's safe, Lena's on our side, and we won. I'll look for the deactivated gun here in the meantime. When are you coming back?"

"In the morning, maybe," Lucy says, looking around at the people she considers her family. "I don't think I can quite rip them away from the Eiffel Tower right now. And, uh, we may need some damage control with the tower. We sort of..."

Alex's line goes dead and Winn guesses that she dropped her phone. Lucy laughs. 

"When Kara is ... done, I'll make her fix it."

"Could be a while," Winn jokes, looking at his friend. Kara's still entwined with Lena. In the meantime, he stands next to the hero of the Earth on an international landmark and gazes up at where he knows his spaceship should be. He doesn't know if the war has been over for months or has destroyed thousands of far-off galaxies, but it doesn't matter to him right then. All that means anything is that the universe aligned for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone, this is the final chapter of my first ever multi chapter fic and the one I created an ao3 account for. When I started it, I wanted to write a short thing Winn/James things with space explorer Winn for a friend who wished there was more fic for this ship. I sent her an anon message asking if she would read it. Then I had to apply for an account and I posted the first chapter, and here I am now.
> 
> I waited more then a week to post it because I didn't want it to be over. I tried to think of a way to extend it, but the ending seems natural here. I know it doesn't quite explain everything or wrap it up, but I just loved how it stops with them all happy and prepared for what's next.
> 
> Speaking of what's next, I've wrote a Barry/Cisco time loop fic recently, and I'm going to be participating in a DCTV femslash challenge, so I'll be posting more Kara/Lena, Caitlin/Lisa, and Lucy/Linda. I'm also planning a multichapter Kara/Lena high school fic. 
> 
> And for this alternate universe, I definitely plan on a sequel where we deal more with the intergalactic war. While IICTS was about anti-alien people on Earth, the sequel will be about anti-everyone robots in space. And since I love this universe so much, I would certainly consider writing one-shots about Winn & Crew before they landed on Earth or James's pre-Winn Guardian life. If there are any special requests anyone has for this au or anything else else, go ahead and leave a comment here or at my tumblr blog chaotic-mewtral. And thanks for reading!


End file.
